Black Dahlia Before Mick Knew Mr Sloppy & Stupid
by RedNightBird
Summary: MICK doesn't know a thing about vampires walking Los Angeles…for him they belong in dark movie theaters.It's 1946. Mick is a musician, living at home. He meets an enigmatic girl, dark hair, china blue eyes, ivory skin, she's Miss Right Now. What's next?


**Black Dahlia, Blue Gardenia / Before Mick Knew About Mr. Sloppy and Mr. Stupid**

#1 Rule...if you recognize them...I do not own them.

This story is because wwmicked poked me, she made me do it! She pulled the ideas right out of my head.

_John St John was a real person. This story is a fabrication; _He was NOT involved with Vampires. It's just kind of cool that he had that last name, wasn't it?

MICK doesn't know a thing about vampires walking Los Angeles…for him they belong in dark movie theaters.

It's 1946. Mick is a musician, living at home. He meets an enigmatic girl, dark hair, china clue eyes and ivory skin, she's Miss Right Now and they have a New Year's Eve fling that leaves him flushed, attached.

The latter half of the story is influenced by the Baptism Rite of the Roman Catholic (Latin / English Translation provided)

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This 1940's inspired Mic-fiction is heavily music influenced. You'll see YouTube Song name so you can access the soundtrack.

Our soundtrack for part 1 is Nat King Cole...Blue Gardenia

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**#1**

**May 4, 1995, Mick's POV**

Josef thinks he knows why I became a PI after I botched so many other careers. He doesn't, he truly doesn't. I had a relative who sort of made a bit of an impression on me, yeah, that's how I got started.

When I got back from Europe my days and nights were jumbled, I was lost in Lilah's arms playing house during the day and working at getting a rep for my music at night. Little did I expect Ray to come rolling home, broken and needing his wife back in his lap. I felt like I had failed my platoon being a survivor, I failed Ray's trust when I slept with his wife for weeks on end. I had failed my Mom and Dad by drifting like barnacle from pillar to post in search of place for my war ravaged psyche.

I was afloat in the nightlife of post war LA. I was humping cigarette girls in the back seat of Louie's hoopdy sedan, playing sets with a drink on the bar stool next to the reefer in the ashtray on stage and sleeping days in my Father's house. Dad wasn't too happy about that single fact and he didn't know about any of my other societal transgressions.

Every family has one in the generation, a go-getter, someone so focused they make everyone else pale in comparison, that was my cousin, John St John. He died yesterday; lucky bastard had pneumonia and pancreatic cancer. I say lucky because he got to grow old, get sick and die. I'm here combing the streets as a creature of the night, for eternity.

John's Death Notice noted they expected a huge funeral, a veritable "Who's Who" of LAPD's powerful and famous. Chief Darryl F. Gates, who worked with my cousin as a young detective, eulogized him. Chief Willie L. Williams reinstated John to active duty as of May 2, 1995 "That he make his final journey as a detective of the Los Angeles Police Department." I thought it was awfully nice, considering the case he was probably most famous for was never solved.

"They" called him "Jigsaw John"; I'll get to that later. Once Coraline snatched me from the mortal coil I didn't give the guy much thought, until today when I caught the obit below the fold on the LA Times. John's gone, one more St John carried out feet first, and I sighed as I folded the newspaper and dropped it to the floor. Whoever said vampires couldn't dream, never recollected the visions we carry, looping over and over for eternity.

**December, 28th, 1946**

I nearly swooned at the sight of a raven haired girl sitting at the Bar, a Lucky Strike teetering between her index and second finger as she stared into the haze, god, she was lovely, different….Her eyes were vacant, sad. I sent her a drink and prepared myself for the next set, a few Nat King Cole tunes, Mona Lisa, Unforgettable, Nature Boy and Stardust.

By the time I was warbling about the "greatest thing is to love and be loved in return" she was staring a hole thru my crotch, or my guitar I couldn't tell. She didn't have that carnal, lustful look; she had drained the first drink and sat swirling the squared Ice cubes in the tumbler she was plainly hungry for affection, some man's undivided attention. I caught Billy J's eye and nodded to give her another one, perhaps I'd spring for a breakfast as the diner after I blew out of here. Otherwise at this rate she'd be in the bag before I got her home and I do not put the moves on a drunken gal.

**#2**

I walked her home, her name was Beth. Today I wonder. . . . . .What is it about the name Beth? I keep running into them, don't I? It was a seedy little walkup a couple of blocks from the bar. Just a room sparsely furnished with the dreams of a want to be starlet. Pages torn from Movie Story and Photoplay were thumb tacked into the tired plaster walls. The Stars watched me lay Beth into the dingy sheets on the twin bed, in the callous light of the bare bulb her shoes were worn, her stockings snagged and her dress a bit faded. Yet in the harsh judgment of swinging light her features were still innocent and wistful, she was a Snow White without 7 diminutive friends.

The walk home cleared out my head, dialed down the buzz of the weed and sanded the edge of the gin. The scent of her cologne hung on my jacket like an invitation to see her again. I took in a deep breath then slid out of it and hung it on the back of my bedroom door. Mom had quit making my bed; it was her signal for me to grow the hell up. The sheets had cooled in the uncharacteristically humid night and in seconds I had fallen into the arms of some demon pulling me under warm waves. I wanted to sleep knowing dawn wasn't far off, yet whatever demon held me kept me roiling thru a red river of suffocating flames. It had been a while since a woman cast a spell over me, was it her dark magic or was I fucked for life?

I ignored the look on my Mother's face as she ran the Electrolux over the carpets; she wore out the design in the center of the dining room rug as her eyes burned at me eating a bowl of Cheerios over the sink. I hadn't been right with her since I came home with a cigarette burn in my Father's dinner jacket, damn marijuana seed popped and landed on the lapel. I had two more weeks' payments before I could bring the new jacket home, hopefully by then I'd be redeemed.

I jumped the bus down to the club around 8, sat in the corner tuning my guitar. I watched the black parade of bar flies and roués as they postured for our early set. There were no Prince Charmings with crystal shoes in their back pocket; they were cads ready to slip an ingénue a Mickey. I had to find another gig.

The crowd milled as it polluted the air with cheap after shave and Cuban cigars, I sought Beth's face in the crowd but when I did make visual contact she was on the arm of some painfully thin guy. He was luminous in the smoky heat of the Cat's Eye Lounge, was it her admiration that afforded him that glow?

She snapped up a stool at the far end of the bar and he hung over her, his hungry eyes taking long looks at the lily white crescents of her breasts peeking out from a sheer black bodice. I lost the beat of "Satin Doll" and Ernie smacked my head with the drumstick, what a bastard. After the set I turned to put down my guitar and in the time it took for me to straighten up… … … the happy couple was gone.

I guessed he was better for her as I ambled to that end of the bar. Billy J nodded and withdrew a paper note from his back pocket, it smelled like her cologne – which was better than the air in the room.

"_**Thanks for being a gentleman, there are damn few of them left. **_

_**Excuse my language, I've been alone awhile. See you again soon. **_

_**Got a date with a guy from MGM, wish me luck,**_

_**Beth Short**_

_**P.s. Are you playing Saturday night, maybe I'll see you then….?"**_

So she scored an after-hours "audition", I downed a gin and tonic and went back to sing about the woes between men and women, "good for her" I wished as I shouldered my guitar and mindlessly fingered the strings. I counted the beats until 1 am when I went straight home for the first time in months.

"To what do we owe this honor?" my Father's pit boss voice boomed. I stared warily up the steps hoping to dial down his volume; I didn't want to wake my Mother.

Dad, Father, it depended how much trouble I was in for what I called him, "Hey, Dad, what's got you up this hour?" I dropped my gig bag in front of the stairs and leaned on the newel post only half looking for a conversation.

"Lilah called your Mother, you know with her Momma being gone now Lilah favors your Momma" Dad's expression looked pressed, like it was woman's talk he didn't need to be party to.

"That's kind of Mom to take her under her wing" I wanted to bolt, wasn't sure what direction the conversation was heading.

"So, they wanted to let us know Robert's christening will be in January, on Epiphany. Ray wanted to know if you'd be there, he said he had to talk with you before then" Michael Sr. scratched at the white expanse of his chest, even at his age he was burly, built like a brick mason, sturdy and strong even though he was a Bank Vice President.

I winced, whatever Ray wanted to talk about I didn't want to know. All I could think were the sins committed when I was last with Lilah, fornication, cunnilingus, fellatio and maybe conception out of wedlock. I hadn't seen Ray or Lilah since Easter and I definitely didn't make an appearance on August 24th when Lilah delivered a baby boy early at home a little after sunrise.

So it would be Sunday, January 6th that they would taste the salt and bite the wafer, praying their son would renounce all things evil. Too bad it was so hard to do that, renounce evil. Evil seemed so much more comfortable, especially when it didn't feel particularly evil at that time. I nodded to Dad and slithered up the stairs to my unmade bed just like a lizard should.

**#3**

Between then and New Years I tossed the idea of asking Beth to come to the Cat's Eye for New Year's Eve, maybe I could start 1947 with a girl on my arm. As I tucked a note in the door-frame at her place someone who passed as a landlord stuck his unshaven mug around the corner of an empty studio.

"She moved out" blunt words hit me so I peeled the folded paper out of the paint blistered jamb and pocketed it.

"She leave an address?" I gave him my best earnest look, didn't want him to think I was an ex-husband.

"Said she was moving in with a friend, Eva around the corner, the brown building, Eva Jackson's name is on the directory" He didn't care if I had been an ax-murderer, so I nodded and tipped my cap on the way out. The brown building was cleaner, looked like a place girls would share. I buzzed #104 and got nothing, so I left the note wedged in the mailbox. What's a guy to do otherwise? Oh, other than ignore his former best buddy's request to swing by for a beer and some conversation? I ended up with refugee feet, heading in the direction of the Victorian house with the wheel chair ramp across the front of the porch.

My lip curled as I stood on the porch, my hat in my hand literally and figuratively. I saw ghosts enjoying lemonade spiked with whiskey, such a delicate twist that might have pushed us off the cliff. I haven't had that drink since the Department of the Armed Forces delivered the "good" news of Ray being found in some backwater Italian war hospital. I heard the metallic sound of the wheels rolling to the front door and I swallowed hard, waiting to be punched hard in the breadbasket by a guy who relied on his arms than his legs.

The door swung open as Ray maneuvered to welcome me, "Hey, buddy, you are a hard guy to catch – what are you some sort of night creature?"

My heart melted, was he going to get me inside to yell at me? "Well, you know being a musician nobody comes to sit and drink in the day, I have to go where the work is these days" I ducked and answered almost as if he were an elder, he looked the part.

"Yeah, I know about that, I've got a line on a job with the VA just as soon as they finish this next round of therapy, they think I'll walk with braces, you know like Roosevelt" He was smiling as he rolled into the parlor and motioned for me to take a seat, "Lilah, would you put on a pot of coffee, we've got a guest, or hey, Mick would you like one of Lilah fresh squeezed Lemonades?"

I couldn't decline, this was his home, he asked me here for a reason, "Coffee's good. . . . .So Dad told me you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah, it's about Bobby, you know" Ray's face went mega-watt bright as he pointed to the professional portrait of his son, just days old, "You know the day he was born we thought we'd lose him, he was so early. I had that taken just in case he didn't make it" Ray's voice dipped in tone, the humor dried up as he thought about losing his son.

That's what I heard from my Mother with hard eyes piercing me along with an admonishment to go to church, light a candle, kneel and pray for such an "innocent child", "Yeah, that's exactly what Mom said, but he's good now, right?"

"He was 4 months old on Christmas Eve, he bawled all the way thru Midnight Mass, what a set of pipes on him." Here was the proud guy I grew up with, leaning forward to share a secret he took his hands off the wheelchair arms and motioned in front of his chest, the international "breast" symbol from the smile on his face, "Lilah had to sit in the back pew with her tit in his mouth thru half the service, that kid's got a sweet gig if you know what I mean".

Ray was the Ray I remembered from junior high when Lilah started to sprout those rosy tipped breasts. Was he goading me into admitting I held those globes in both hands in solemn worship with my lips?" I nodded and grinned as if we were back in Jr. High.

"So, I know you kind of shied away when I got back, it's got to be rough to see me here" Ray motioned to the chair, hung his head while he collected his thoughts, then ran the back of his hand under his nose and faced me, "Lilah said you made sure she had everything she needed, I sure appreciate the condition of the house cause you know I couldn't do this work now" He was home grown sincerity 100%.

"Buddy, I was glad I could be here for the both of you" I bit out the words nearly tripping my teeth over my bottom lip and suddenly that fragrance filled the room, Tabu.

And yes, Lilah was taboo to me now, as she proffered the tray toward me and I accepted the coffee cup I held it in both hands receiving the warmth as I had with her breasts in their bed. I inhaled the warm steam from the fresh java and we all sat silent, Lilah on the end of the sofa nearest to Ray's chair. They clasped fingers loosely, resting on his thigh and I pushed all my desires to the raven hair beauty that was looking forward to Saturday night.

"We wanted you to be Bobby's Godfather" Lilah's words escaped just as I swallowed a hot mouthful of coffee and I nearly choked.

"Me?" was all I could muster dumbly.

"He is Robert Michael Fordham" Ray proudly announced, his adoring gaze on the infant's hand colored portrait.

"Wow, that's a big honor, I mean I'm not even going to church right now will the Church OK that?" I was trying to buck the responsibility, who was I to lead a child down the path of righteousness?

"Father Hurley is a little bit elastic on it, we've got my younger sister and her husband as the official God Parents, but I wanted you to hold him at the font, for me" Rays' eye skimmed over his hands pulled into prayer posture, his elbows on his knees.

"Why can't we get you up in those braces so you can hold Bobby yourself?" If I rejected the thought I would will it to be "so", I wasn't the child's father. Just then the staccato of Bobby's cry cut the peace.

I watched Lilah leap to her feet, and press her forearms against her breasts, my expression caught Ray's eyes and her reverted to that juvenile leer, "When he cries she sprouts like a fountain" he proclaimed and I was learning more about Motherhood than I wanted to know. Sitting in the Fordham's Parlor I wondered if I ever would be able to share life with a wife and children?

We made small talk while we drank coffee, he filled me in on his therapy (gruesome and arduous), his job prospects (in the VA Hospital Business Office) and the fact that he was looking forward to walking he correlated the use of his legs with everything that was masculine and strong. In his heart right now he was less than a man because of the metal chair, he wanted to walk up those stairs to the bed he shared with Lilah, not drag himself by his hands.

What could I say other than nod? I never had anything as grand as legs taken from me….. I drew down the last of my second cup of coffee and set the cup and saucer on the tray before me. I was standing to leave when I saw the silhouette of a woman and infant moving toward me in the cool, dim hallway. I heard Bobby's happy gurgles and saw her loving attentiveness in her body language and her face. Lilah glowed.

"Here's our wonder child" Lilah held him out to me and I initially resisted, I could break him or drop him, "Go ahead you'll have to hold him at the Baptism Font" Bobby was small, yet rambunctious, kind of like a Bantam Weight fighter, tiny fists flying with extreme control. I received my God Son and felt impelled to sit back down lest I keel over from awe.

Deep brown ringlets curled around his face, framing chubby cheeks and puckered lips. I looked to Lilah for guidance and she kept nodding, the two of them enjoying seeing my efforts to contain the swinging arms of their otherwise swaddled child. I took in Bobby's appearance, from his dark hair unlike his auburn headed Mother and his sandy brown headed Father to the dimpled cleft in his chin the stork could have dropped this baby down the wrong chimney (or wherever the storks dropped babies).

My News Year's resolutions would include sleeping with women only when I put a sock on my cock, haven't formulated how to implement the plan perfectly, yet I will before that big hand hits 12:00 in a couple of days.

December 31st the night was electric, more sequins than I'd seen before, more swells with gals in their arms, more champagne flowing than beer. New Year's Eve, 1946, I was waiting to see if she'd be here before Saturday night, January 4th. I had a shot of courage and a clean shirt and when Beth sauntered into the club alone I was on top of the effin' world.

Sure it was a unique night, the end of the war era, the beginnings of hope. I know I had hope, for a steady girl, for a better gig, maybe even get back into Ray and Lilah's lives in a good way. I wasn't even bargaining with God the way you do when your back is against the wall. I nodded to Beth and blew her a kiss as the bartender served her a Martini, extra dirty. She sent me back a wave and I shivered at the sight of her in the black satin dress, a black silk flower in her lustrous black waves. Red lips caressed the edge of the glass and I got into the swing of "A Fine Romance"

_**Old Blue Eyes sings it for us tonight: A Fine Romance**_

I had been mesmerized through the entire set and when we swung into the last song a sultry blond appeared behind her, hasty greetings were exchanged and they hugged, then it all went a little kinky when Blondie locked lips with Beth right there in the middle of "Five Minutes More".

_**Old Blues Eyes sings for us Five Minutes More.**_

I could have been Vaughn Monroe and not kept the crowd's attention around the end of the bar. I guess they hadn't seen two women kiss more than a peck, hell, I really hadn't seen two women get this into it.

I fingered the strings with sheer determination as I slid the cool smooth back of my guitar across my stiffening cock. I wondered if she'd kiss me like that... Most people have to pay for a show like this, furtive soft hands roamed over each other's shoulders, Jesus, didn't they need to come up for air? Then that wiry guy that came in with Beth the other night slid behind the horny blond and led her away.

Beth's blush rose from her cleavage to her hairline as she smoothed her hair and wiped at her smeared black/red lipstick. She flashed a smile at me and blew me a kiss that time. I was watching the clock while I actually wanted to watch her undress….. ….. It was 10:47pm, just a tad more time in 1946.

**#4**

Frankie stopped the music about 11:55 he figured he'd go out of 1946 with a full till. I stepped into the bathroom and splashed what passed for fresh cooler water on my mug, Beth's little show with the blond made me rearrange myself. Was she showing her hand to challenge me to step up and show her what a man could do or was she throwing her cards down to keep me back?

My bet was on the challenge, so I wiped my wet face on a fresh segment of the towel from the wall dispenser. I always wondered where the crumpled dirty towel went when you pulled the clean part down. What the hell, I'd find Beth and see if I could make some fireworks between us.

She kept her seat at the end of the bar, alone; the party was going on around her. I admit I got a rise in my shorts when she brightened up seeing me strolling toward her. "Almost happy new year" I grinned at her as I leaned my elbow on the bar.

"Same to you, Mick" she craned her neck to pucker a smooch on my cheek; I felt the waxy residue of her lipstick on my stubble and the scent of her cologne. Was I given her "imprimatur"?

The next couple of minutes flew, and before I could shuffle from right to left foot we had drinks in our hands and our arms wrapped around each other for a midnight toast. We kissed at midnight; eyes wide open in a sort of frank and abrupt manner. It was part perfunctory, part exploratory, part elation at having a new set of lips to kiss.

Then a switch flipped and the drinks were out of hands and she was on her feet, her hands splayed under my dinner jacket seeking each other behind my back. I met her action for action, feeling the slick, tight fabric of her evening frock. I felt the rigid structure of her brassiere and both my hands rode the curve of her buttocks, feeling the garter belt, yet no panty waist band. Holy Lord, she was sans panties.

We caromed off the vertical surfaces until we were outside the club, we spun in circles until we hit a parked car and I pitched her over the hood of a sedan, her hands flew off me to steady herself against the cool metal so I caught her wrists and held them over her head as I bent over her, mindful of her diminutive size before I leaned in for another long smooch. My knee split hers as I slid her further on the hood and her feet left the ground. We weren't talking at all, just sloppy kisses, fabric sliding between bodies pressed hard against each other.

Did I let go of her wrists or did she wrestle free from me? I didn't remember we were deep in the throes of that fresh rapture, new bodies moving making sparks.

Partiers ran past us in the street, hooping, hollering and clanging noisemakers, it was a rush in the din of the crowd. Somewhere in the background I heard a guy yell, "Hell, yeah, what you do new year's day you'll do all year" and the thought melted into my mind, to plunder and pleasure this girl/woman. My pleated trousers tented and I rubbed over her thigh, we were so high on each other we just heaved in deep breaths between kisses.

"Can you come home with me?" I knew it wasn't for milk and cookies, I could get them at home.

"I have to play the closing set, it's a short one, then we can get…to your place, OK?" I stood straight and situated myself, the steel in my trousers didn't want to go down, and she caught my excitement and smoothed it down my thigh only to have me gasp with the sensation of her hand on me. My dick sprung back up, "You've got to stop that or I'll blow right here". I shook my head and sucked in any air I could catch.

"I can relieve that pressure" her eyes sparkled in the street lights as her hand grasped me harder. I shuddered at her touch, soft and firm at the same time.

"It's not like I couldn't go for that right now, it's, it's, ah, not the way I want to do it. . . . . . Give me 30-45 minutes and we can be alone, OK?" I thought about my resolution to cover my soldier and I fished in my pockets to come up empty. I didn't need another tax deduction this year….. Good idea to stall until I could bring balloons to the party.

I cleared a seat at the top of the bar, nearest to the band, while we did the last set. As I played all the sensations of her body against mine swirled within me, propelled by fingers over the neck of the guitar while I strummed along turning away from her to concentrate… I didn't want another drumstick to the head. We finished big with "Deep Purple" and I fixated on deep purple dreams so dark they were as black as Beth's hair.

_DEEP PURPLE-Guy Lombardo Orchestra_

_**When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls**_

_**And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky—**_

_**In the mist of a memory you wander back to me**_

_**Breathing my name with a sigh...**_

The guys saw the looks on our faces, I packed up my guitar and slung it over my shoulder, they winked at me and I took Beth's hand in mine to walk her home. I had scored a trifecta of rubbers in the bathroom and we were on our way.

"My roommate went to San Diego for New Years, so it's just us" Beth demurred as we sauntered down the sidewalk. The streets were still alive with revelers as we rose up the steps to her flat.

It was cleaner than her last place, there was more to be clean this time. Well-kept plaster walls had fakes of famous oil paintings, the movie magazines were fanned on the coffee table in front of a chintz sofa. The tiny kitchen had three liquor bottles on a gay colored tray with small jelly jars waiting. Beth kicked off her platform heels and went to crack the ice trays into a bucket.

"How about a drink? I've got gin, rum and bourbon" she stood in her stocking feet, her hip cocked at an angle – she looked so inviting even in the fluorescent overhead light, "I've got a lime, some cola here somewhere"

"OK, whatever you're having, OK?" I slinked out of the dinner jacket and hung it over the chair in the living room. I sat to untie my shoes while she made our drinks. I sat back, knees wide, legs extended while I watched her hips undulate under the slinky dress. I felt the heat rise in my thighs, I wanted her all night…

Beth flicked off the kitchen light and walked to me in a silhouette from the street lights outside. Her pale white skin aglow against the deep black red of her lipstick, she handed the tall drink to me, a double, maybe a triple of what looked like lemonade with bourbon. I caught myself thinking of front porches and home repair duties with the first sip, then she straddled my lap and all of the past went out of my mind.

I lay back in the chair and let her engulf me, the skirt of her sleek dress hitched up to her full hips, revealing the garter belt and just as I thought, no panties. We slaked our thirst, drinking down the liquid courage half way, and then again our hands emptied to get to the matter at hand, each other.

There wasn't a water on the earth that was going to put out her fire, we were in crazy motions kissing, petting, and pinching at just the right tension of painful pleasure. We worked on all the skin that showed before I had broken out in a keen sweat and grabbed her to carry her to bed, "Where?" I hoarsely choked out as I held her like a bride over a threshold.

"Second door on the right" Beth's black hair had fallen from its containment with combs and silk flowers, she looked like a wild child, untamed. I kicked open the door and the cool air rushed us, we needed it, we hadn't begun and we were already overheated.

I dropped her onto a full size bed with a blue and black striped bedspread so I could undress; she rebounded and knelt on the bed in front of me. A single index finger went to my lips as she opened her eyes wide to mine, the windows on her soul showed pain, loneliness, and something I couldn't identify. All I could do was lean into her supplications, her unbuttoning my dress shirt, sliding down the suspenders and she pressed close to reach around to undo the cummerbund. The sweet scent of her cologne sang an invitation to thrust away the sadness. Warm flat palms skimmed my chest, my hair standing up at her touch. Again she knew how to ring my bell with the least effort.

Then the killer blow, she unbuttoned my trousers, slowly unzipping the fly. Each pair of teeth in the zipper registered a loud noise as I ached to be in her hands. Finally my trousers slinked to the bare floor and my shorts followed. The room was charged with our energy for each other, and it was finally my turn to undress her, I grabbed her by the waist and spun to stand before me as I sat on the side of the bed.

I unzipped the side zipper and lifted the dress over her head, tossing it to the chair, and then regarded the black lace lingerie that covered her ripe, pale breasts. The lace on the garter belt matched the brassiere, yet the only black at the top of her thighs was a thick curly bush of black curls, I plunged my nose into her, holding her by the hips to keep her in reach while I inhaled that decidedly feminine tang of a hot wet pussy. She was warm and soft and musky in a clean romantic way, I could just inhale her and stay stiff. If I dared sink right in I'd lose it in seconds, I had to extend this stage.

This was 57 varieties of intense, from the corn silk feel of her black hair as it whipped back at me, to the pliant ivory flesh she pressed against me. I had to grab her, hug her around the hips and feel the flat of her belly against my cheek. I felt her fingers comb thru my hair, down my neck to crawl across my shoulders. When did flesh on flesh feel like this? We hadn't even fondled each other "there" yet; we were going insane running flesh over flesh with the expectation of plundering into wet depths together.

Then she tipped the balance of our concentration and I fell back on the bed, feeling crisp clean linen beneath me, the smell of the iron still fresh around me, a perfect irony to the musky honeyed smell of my partner. She crawled up my length and worked me to a dither, so much so that I couldn't do more than lay back and let her ride me, I never wanted the sun to rise, I just wanted to feel her planted on me, riding me until I came undone in a whirlwind of bright lights and a deep throb that rolled up from my toes. I shook as I emptied into her and she quivered from her shoulders down to her toes, especially her tight pussy clutching my shuddering cock. She fell on me, a soft brush of hair and sweet lips finding mine as we whispered our awe for each other.

She fell over me, bathed in the sweet sweat of ardor mixed with mine. I wanted to freeze the moment for all time, we laid there and dozed off and on until we heard the milk truck amble by the open window. The alley cats trailed behind the most influential guy in their eyes, waking us with their caterwauling until the Milkman sacrificed half a pint of cream in a saucer. We laid there on our bellies and watched out the window, affectionately stroking finger tips over each other until we were nearly in giggles.

When the sun peeked between the two buildings across the street I twirled a strand of ebony hair around my finger and drew her face to mine, seeking her kiss ravaged lips for more, "You hungry?"

"Just for you" she smirked, and we rolled over and started all over again.

**#5**

Beth Short had so many misgivings about her young life and it took me back to my days bargaining with God on the battlefield. We were close in age, yet decades apart in experiences. Listening to her talking about criss-crossing the continent between her Mother and her Father I dug at my conscious to appreciate my own parents dealing with me in my arrested development.

If she had been man handled or raped, her responses to me didn't show it, she was eager and sweet and pleasing to my body's efforts. Sex had thrown us into wild waters and coming to know each other in those early hours of January 1st we swam to a stranger shore than we had known singly. Earlier in the morning we chewed at a loaf of bread, seeded rye while she carved at a few inches of Genoa salami and provolone cheese, god; we had hungry bellies but hungrier libidos.

Drink fell short of the high we were finding in each other, later in the day I taught her a few tricks about scavenging a kitchen and we settled for sort of a quiche, then a shower and a retreat to the sheets we had let air out.

"I, ah, brought these, and I didn't get them out in time" I proffered the trio of wrapped condoms and she playfully grabbed them, holding them by the ends of the packing like an accordion.

"Only 3?" It wasn't a sneer, it was a smirk at my underestimating our lust, "Doesn't a guy like you buy them by the case?" her eyes shot sideways as she dropped them on the bed table and fell back against the headboard, knees drawn to her breasts.

I left her around sunset; showered and dressed I knew I needed to be home. Home for dinner, for apologies, for epic conversations with my Mother and my Father about what 1947 would see me doing. If Beth could travel and make a life alone at 22 I should be able to do more that stumble into a home my parents had made and stumble out just to play music.

I was nearly whistling when I turned the corner on my street. I wasn't avoiding the Fordham's stretch of the block anymore, but I spared them the sight of a single guy walking back from an all-night bed fest. I needed a shave, a change of clothes and I wanted to share an earnest drink with my Father.

"Aye, look what the cat dragged in? Do you know this one, Mother?" My Dad sat back in his rocker, reading the afternoon paper, a stub of a cigar in the side of his mouth.

I shrugged and my lips instinctively mouthed an apology as I stowed my gig bag and hung my dinner jacket up.

"You want to get cleaned up before dinner, son?" he was giving me a bit of an "out" to face Mom immediately, hopefully there would be a semblance of decorum at the dinner table if they were going to take me to task. I took steps two at time to shave and change into fresh clothes. I trotted back down to a table set with a pork roast, red cabbage, black eyed peas and a cast iron pan of corn bread.

"I see the made it home for dinner, I guess I should be glad" Mom grabbed me by the jaws and did her best to crush me to her for a kiss on my chin.

"Oh, Mom, if you had a tattoo, you know it would say "Son", I winked at her and hugged her around her waist nearly picking her up.

"Right, and the pain of getting' that said tattoo would be less than how my heart bleeds for ya', Mick" Her eyes were about to narrow at me when something snapped and she shook her head as if remembering it. I saw the table set for 5 and the high chair pulled from the attic that meant the Fordham's would be joining us. I dropped her on her feet and clapped my hands together in anticipation of the meal between the 5 of us. I followed her lead and helped her bring the food out, within moments there was a knock at the door and Dad held the door wide for Lilah behind Bobby's carriage. Then haltingly Ray's crutches stalked up the couple of stairs to our porch. I heard him breathing hard from the parlor. I wondered if he would be ashamed to accept help, I didn't give it a lot of thought, I barged right to him and like a friend he accepted.

We assembled around the dinner table after making holiday small talk…my Mom watching every gurgle and burp that Bobby sent out.

"Ray, you still waiting for that opening at the VA?" My Dad wanted to talk business and jobs, homes were going and his bank had a burgeoning mortgage department.

"Just as soon as I finish this next round of therapy, I'll be up and around almost like Roosevelt." His eyes traveled around the table where he got back our support in nodding heads and smiles. We ate and chatted, it was hardly the time for me to repent to my parents when part of the confession was about the Fordham's. I guess the highlight of the meal was the peach cobbler with the whipped cream, once Mom leaned in with a spoon of sweet whipped to Bobby's lips he cooed and blinked at its foreign flavor, from now I wondered if he'd turn his nose up at the other offerings. It all came down to men and what was offered them, the light went off in my brain. It was time for me to look for more than I was being offered.

I walked them all home, carrying Ray's crutches while he wheeled his chair down the sidewalk, we talked about the baptism party, the baptism and before I knew it I was back on the sidewalk alone, waving good night. I had the rest of the night off with Mom and Dad.

"So, you're not out gallivanting tonight?" My Mother's voice was hopeful as she set the 78 on the turntable and began the first cut of an evening of Glenn Miller. She found her place in the chair next to Dad and sat to crochet more of the squares she had stacked in the basket at her feet.

Glenn Miller's String of Pearls http:/ www ./watch?v=aQUljW_s50I

"It's a new year," I admitted as I found a seat on the sofa, holding the throw pillow in front of me, I nodded at Dad and Mom, "I wanted to start off with perhaps a new direction, I've been playing fast and loose since I came home"

I guess that was a bomb .. … … … however I went on, "I guess being a musician isn't all it's cracked up to be. I could be a lot of things" My Father stared at me, his glasses pushed back on his head; I swear my Mom dropped a stitch.

"Mickey, you were a medic, have you thought of a medical career?" there he was steering me away from the button down life of a Banker, his career chosen after WWI.

"Dr. St. John, doesn't that have a glorious sound to it?" I grinned at my Mother's reverence for the title. When I broke into a laugh she nodded more adamantly.

I held up a cautioning hand, "After that war I don't want to see one more pint of blood or plasma" I pressed my thumbs into my closed eyes, vanquishing the thought of blood splattered ground and shattered bodies, "I was thinking of applying for the GI Bill, maybe looking into the LAPD. Dad, I was hoping for some encouragement like you gave Ray"

Dad harrumphed a bit, folding his book in his lap, blinking and then pursing his lips, it was his "tell", "is that what you really want, son? Day in and day out, to sit in front of a vault and advise other people about their money? All that action in Europe I could see you on the LAPD, it would seem tame. You ought to have a word with your cousin, John; he just made Detective over at LAPD." Maybe Dad did want a broader venue for my life, I felt closer to him with his comments.

"Can I count on you to be up with me more in the day?" Mom was fishing for time to chat, time for me to open pickle jars and small errands. Her hands began to move to create the Granny square while she peered over her glasses, "It will be a while before you can register for classes, and meanwhile you can get back to your better habits. Sobriety can only help your decision making process"

So there I was getting the sermon I asked for, making the obligation for self-development in 1947. I made the note about my cousin; John and then I got the lecture about virtuous women and the implication was stressed by both of my parents that I find a career and a wife in that order.

**January 2, 1947**

When I played on Thursday night I played clean, no smoke, one beer, albeit it was a tall one. Reggie didn't look too hard at me; in fact they thanked me for keeping up with the band. Beth didn't show, so I could either call my house after 10pm (a real no-no) to let them know I was out all night (double no-no) and go by her place. After the pledge I made the other night I chalked it up to giving the lady the night off, besides – what if Beth was "entertaining" someone else or washing her hair? I spare myself any embarrassment and retired by 3am. I wanted to be clean and sober for the baptism.

I remembered missing Beth while getting back into the fold of my family, my friends. Then it started, the pain and swelling in my boys, the burning when I took piss. When the discharge oozed I slapped the wall above the urinal. Was it Beth? Was it the coat check girl that disappeared the week before Christmas? Crap, I ended up taking a trip to the Dr and after I sat thru the indignity of getting swabbed and inspected I read a pamphlet on all sorts of the "dangers" of what I was doing.

The cold exam table, the humiliation of reciting the names and addresses of the women I had been with and finally the look on the doctor's face as he handled my deflated cock drove me to believe the brochures as I sat there reading while they performed a Gram Stain. Then I saw the handout on Paternity Tests, "Do you need any of my blood?" I asked the nurse as she finalized the letters to Beth and the coat check girl.

"For this? No" she saw the pamphlet and realized I had something else on my mind, "Is there a question of Paternity in your current relationship?" She looked like a full tilt Army Nurse I met before I shipped out.

"Could be, is there any way to uhummn, tell a child's father by blood or sperm?" If I could erase my fears in one arena I'd be able to get thru this with flying colors.

"Well, your sperm's ability is judged on …." She droned on about volume, concentration, motility and morphology. I hung on to her words trying to piece the puzzle together, "So if it's inadequate you're not going to impregnate a woman." She tied that up in a very pessimistic bow, made it sound like the ultimate failure to have your swimmers found to be sparse, scrawny and under motivated. No man wants that!

"Since I'm A+, what could my son be?" Now I really had her ear, this edged on gossip, which a medical professional would never engage in.

"Well, what's the Mother's blood type?" she consulted a booklet on the shelf. I was stumped, I knew Ray was O+, didn't know Lilah's blood type, or Bobby's.

"I don't know, really, I don't. But can you tell if I'm viable, as you call it?" This was one of the hardest things I had to ask, I felt totally emasculated.

"Here" she held out a specimen jar and pointed into the bathroom, "Give up a specimen, Mr. St John, maybe you'll sleep better tonight"

I felt like a chump jerking off to weasel out of being Bobby's father, on the other hand, if I could rest that Bobby is Ray's son then I could really start the year clean. After what I thought was a respectable emission I looked at barely a teaspoon of juice and capped it. I closed my eyes and handed it off to the "Noctor" on staff, then slunk off to the exam room with last year's National Geographic that had provided me with the impetus to come. I figured I could stand the naked natives without shooting off again.

I lost track of time looking at the glossy ads for Cadillac and Lucky Strikes and a solid knock on the door announced Dr. Randall's return. Standing before me in a starched white coat was one of the reasons I couldn't be a Doctor, I couldn't be the one to always deliver hard news.

"Mr. St John?" he extended a clean, firm handshake and I shook it perhaps a bit too long.

"Yes, Dr Randall, what do you know?" I was anxious to get off the paper covered table.

"we've got some good news and some bad news here. Which one did you want first?"

**#6**

I didn't really feel the hit of those words, "What?" I queried his delivery.

"Did you have mumps as a child?" he flipped thru the medical chart seeking info as I nodded.

"Yeah, a whopper case of them" I remembered my parents whispering in the doorway as I lay there in misery.

"You're a veteran, any injuries to that area?" Dr Randall peered over his glasses, perhaps suspect of anything I was going to say, we were treading in an area of a man's pride.

"Nope, I'm 100% intact" I got the feeling he was going to tell me otherwise.

"Ok, the good news is that we have Penicillin to cure the Gonorrhea. The unfortunate news, Mr. St. John, is you are sterile, there's nothing there to count. It was probably the Mumps, we see that a lot." He folded his arms over his chest, out of words, "Well, the Nurse will be in with your shot, when you have yourself together you can leave" he stuck out that well washed hand and was out the door in seconds.

When was I going to get myself together from that news? Hey Mr. St John, you shoot blanks and you've got the clap. Good news you don't need the rubbers, you'll just want them to keep from doing this again. I sat back in my shorts waiting for my "shot". Did I slink home and share my news, did I wait until I got serious with a girl and say, by the way. "I shoot blanks" or do I just get it tattooed on my forearm "Shoots Blanks"? _It just gets better and better… … …_

I went to the Cat's Eye and got settled for the show, I watched the band go thru the automatic routines of tuning and setting up. I lit up a Lucky Strike and sat on a crate in the alley thinking about giving my notice to the guys, so they'd be out one guitarist. I'd be out a small sum while I tried my hand at being a student. I figured I'd keep my mouth shut a few more weeks.

The house lights went down and we kicked into our first set, Reggie sang to a red head at a stage side table, I reran my tryst with Beth; the smile on my face must have been scandalous from the looks the cocktail waitress, Cookie was giving me. Then the door flew open and an entourage entered, splitting the ocean of the crowd. The couple holding court was a strange pair, the man, tall, dark and sturdy with an eye patch. Maybe he was a veteran, or just a garden variety bad ass. I mistook the woman for Beth, until I saw she was smaller boned, more delicate and all the more sultry and sophisticated, kind of like Elizabeth Taylor in a brilliant red velvet dress.

The couple behind them was the blond who laid the lip lock on Beth and an equally blond Viking looking guy. This crew looked like something out of central casting, were they from Paramount just slumming? They slid into the largest circular booth and Candy advanced on them to earn their "good graces". She leaned into the bad ass and got their drink orders and was back to their table post haste. We got a card with a 50 dollar bill folded into it, their request, "Till the End of Time" a little ditty by Buddy Kaye, based on Chopin's Polonaise in A- Flat and "YOU KEEP COMING BACK LIKE A SONG" from the musical film "Blue Skies" and a real corny one for our joint, "Putting on the Ritz"

"Till the End of Time"

"YOU KEEP COMING BACK LIKE A SONG"

" Puttin' on the Ritz"

They didn't look like swells from the 30's, but their taste in music certainly spanned the decades, for $50 bucks we'd play "Happy Birthday". Right in the middle of Puttin' on the Ritz, Beth Short entered the scene on the arm of that thin, blond guy she had the "audition" with earlier in the week. Was I jealous? Sure, I was also feeling like a heel since I knew she'd be getting a letter from the health department about our little horizontal mambo. I was hoping to slink right into the stage since I couldn't keep honest company with any of that gang, even though they seemed to watch us pretty close.

Each time "Mr. Patch" wanted something, his right hand would rise slightly with a folded bill between his index and second finger, Candy sniffed that out promptly and worked it for all he was worth. At the break, Candy sidled up behind me, "Mr. Patch wants you to join them for a drink"

"That's his name?" I wanted to chuckle.

"His name is Etienne Chevalier, he's Eu-ro-pe-an" Candy accentuated each syllable as she grinned at me, "So order a single malt and make it worth your while" she shuffled from one sore foot to the other in her high heels, balancing her tray on the flat of one palm. She winked and headed for the service bar.

Single malt? I blanched at the thought of spending that kind of coin for a belt of booze, "Sure Candy as long as it's his tab, let me take a leak and then I'll head over" I called to her with a nod.

Around the circular booth I spied possibly 6 of the most beautiful people on earth. The 5 strangers were dressed to the 9's, Mr. C's cravat held with a gold Fleur de Lys and ruby stickpin, his pinky ring a similar design. He winked his good eye at me and pulled a chair close to him, patting it for emphasis as I neared. He rose as best he could and extended his hand, "Etienne Chevalier, pleased to have you join us, Mr. St John".

I shook the coldest hand I'd touched this side of the Ardennes and dropped it as he introduced his sister, Amelia Dubonnet and her escort for the evening, another Frenchie I didn't catch his name, she was that much of a looker.

Beth sat along side them with a "How do you like me now" look on her face, very much impressed with the group she had fallen in with, her date was dressed almost as gaudy as Chevalier and he had clearly outfitted her for the evening in black head to toe. I noticed the jet bead bracelets at each of her wrists when I caught her hand.

"I believe you know Alexander's protégé, Miss Elizabeth Short," Mr. C nodded with an effete grin, I nodded back to him and caught her slim hand, warm in comparison with the others. I held it for a beat and then thought what the hell; I'd seen a guy kiss a girl's hand once, so I did it. Right there in front of her date_. Did the guy growl at me?_

A tumbler of single malt mysteriously appeared at my hand and we began chatting about music, American Jazz and the accommodations at the Biltmore (someplace I didn't have the coin to stay). Beth sat silently, lighting her dates' cigar, then sat silently, hands folded demurely on the starched white table cloth while "Mr. Date" ran a well-manicured finger over the bracelets on her left wrist. It was distracting watching him touch her almost reverently, hadn't I been between her legs a couple of nights before? I guess he could do more for her than I would ever do… .. .. … .

"Are you a pure blooded Californian, Mr. St John?" Amelie queried as she sipped a dry double martini, a delicate eyebrow arched in my direction, dark waves cascaded over her ear and a brilliant red nail snagged it back behind a delicate ear wearing a huge ruby earring.

"Second generation on my Father's side" I was amazed at a foreigner's thirst for genealogy of a Californian she'd just met.

"And your Mama?" Etienne posed, cigar aloft, the same style brow cocked at me. I wondered how he lost his eye and I found myself staring at the patch, then I blinked into my drink and swallowed more than I planned.

"Irish by birth, met Dad in the War" Why was I spilling my guts to these folks for the price of a single malt?

**#7**

"And she's the musical one isn't she?" Etienne's eyes nearly glazed over in rhapsody, as if he were remembering some tune, then he snapped back, his eye set on me, his reached out and touched the back of my hand, "Mick, may I call you, Mick?"

I was drawn to nod and I sipped my scotch down. His one good eye held my attention and I don't exactly remember what he said, the din of the club whirling around me. My eyes panned the table as his date's hand disappeared under the table; the redhead's shoulder movement implied she was stroking his thigh. Amelie was inhaling her cigarette and lingering in the flavor of it, leaning her head back she blew rings of smoke that rose above her head as if she were the entertainment at the Olympics. Her date, "Mr. Bored" adjusted his collar and played with his cuffs, he shifted the Manhattan shirt sleeve up and down on his wrist as if agitated, then he'd drink, a lot, as Amelie seemed to be ignoring him. Then on the other side of the seemingly silent pair was Beth and her date, Mr. MGM or Mr. Paramount, I wasn't sure. She had stopped looking at me, she was drinking slowly and I wondered if she was thinking about our New Year's revelry.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, "Hey Mickey, it's time to pick it up and start playing again" Reggie whispered, keeping a few fingers on my shoulder as if to pull me back to the stage. He was the top dog in our little group; I guess he had a vested interest in my performance with this group

"Could you play, "I've got you under my skin" and Mick, could you sing it for me?" Etienne slid a $50. Bill folded twice across the table before me. What could I say?"

Frank Sinatra : I've got you under my skin

I shouldered by guitar and the guys gave me that "look" of curious envy.

"_**I've got you under my skin, I've got you deep in the heart of me,**_

_**So deep in my heart . . . you're really a part of me, I've got you under my skin!"**_

I hadn't had someone totally under my skin since Lilah, with tonight's little exhibition I figured it would be awhile.

_**I tried so . . . not to give in, I said to myself . . . this affair, never will go so well!**_

_**But why should I try to resist, When 'Darling' I know so well, I've got you under my skin!**_

Was I looking for "it", the "one"? I wasn't in any position to offer any one anything. Mom was right, career then a woman.

_**I'd sacrifice anything; come what might, For the sake of having you near!**_

_**In spite of the warning voice, that comes in the night, and repeats, and repeats, in my ear . .**_

There wasn't a soul on this earth I'd make that pledge to, nope, not right now.

_**"Don't you know little fool . . . you never can win!**_

_**Use your mentality, wake up to reality!"**_

I sang that line to myself, eyes closed as I envisioned two of me, the proverbial Boy Scout and the sinner pulling in opposite directions.

When my eyes opened I spied Etienne, his lips wrapped around the stogie, his eyes closed, and head back taking a luxuriantly long draw on the Cuban, his date now making lazy circles on his shoulder as she cuddled closer. He broke the pose suddenly and grabbed her free hand and then walked his lips from her fingertips to her wrist then kissed her ardently over her throbbing pulse point. They looked like they needed a room, I was a voyeur and I was sure he wanted it that way.

_**But each time I do . . . just the thought of you, Makes me 'stop' before I begin,**_

_**'Cause I've got you . . . Hmm I got you, I got you . . . under my skin!**_

Somewhere in the last set between, "Night and Day" and "If I Loved You" my eyes left the enigmatic group when I sought Beth's smile they were all gone. The table was cleaned and new music lovers in their place.

Frank Sinatra: "If I Loved You"

Sunday morning, Epiphany, I sat thru mass, a great day of discovery at least for the rest of the congregation. My blue pin stripe suit fit looser than I remembered it and that was OK; I didn't feel like being strangled by a coat and neck tie 6 days of the week. As the Latin service melodiously ran on I shifted too often for someone my age by the look on my Mother's face. Then sitting, kneeling under the specter of a tortured Christ crucified I adjusted my perspective on my self-absorption.

Today was about the Fordham's, their new life as a family. The ceremony was edification that as friends we would be there for them and I was internally grousing about wearing a tie. Great, I'm not only self-centered I'm sterile and carrying a sexually transmitted disease. If God loved the sinner I should shuffle up to the front pew to claim my share.

Bobby cooed and nursed on Lilah's breast in the "cry room" behind us, Ray sat with me and my parents, his chair collapsed on the end of the pew. 5 years ago we would have been sitting in church waiting to run to the movie house for the matinee. Today we were here to renounce the devil and all his works.

I pulled the fresh handkerchief out of my coat packet and swabbed at the beads of sweat, then followed the communicants to the altar rail for communion.

Mesmerized by the throaty organ music and the choir's host of voices I felt unexpectedly safe. I kneeled shoulder to shoulder with Ray and my Father as pangs of remorse rioted within me, near tears I buried my face in my praying hands, waiting for the Altar Boy to slide the Paten under my chin. I heard the weighty swish of the brocade vestments as Father Haddon moved down the line dispensing the body of Christ with whispered blessings.

I recovered in time to receive the sacrament, praying that I would feel the grace as distinctly as a yard sprinkler. I didn't, and I prayed for it while I blindly followed Ray back to the pew. The Mass ended and we filed to the narthex of the old church; Lilah all buttoned up holding Bobby in her capable arms. The rhythm of our breathing reverberated off the stone ceiling as we waited for the ceremony to begin.

Father Haddon asked "quid petis ab Ecclesia Dei?" (what do you ask of the Church of God? )

The true Godparents answered woodenly "Fidem" ( Faith).

By rote Fr. Hadden shot back, "Fides, quid tibi præstat? (What does Faith offer you?)

With reverence they replied "Vitam æternam" (Life everlasting.)

I blanked out as Fr. Haddon spoke about loving thy neighbor as thyself. How did I remember all that Latin? Had I learned anything about "loving thy neighbor?"

Fr. Haddon breathed 3 times on the candidate in the form of a Cross, recalling the Spirit (breath, wind, "ruach") of God. Memories rushed me; I recalled the times I bent over a fallen comrade, eagerly pushing my breath down his throat as I staunched a hemorrhage.

This entire ceremony was spiritually intimidating for a guy like me…. Did they see me shaking as I held the innocent child?

**#8 The Sign of the Cross**

I had sat in the car and fiddled with the camera, loading the Kodachrome film I prayed Bobby's life would always be as vivid as the colors we'd catch today. Once I gathered the courage to enter the painted Victorian I found a cake, a roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes squeezed thru a pastry bag and attempts at conversation over the squeals of the 4 month old guest of honor.

Dad had bought this pre-War Kodak Retina to catch my High School graduation, now I was hiding behind it, clicking out images of a life he wished I was living.

Hiding behind the view finder it was easier to pass the afternoon watching the cross expressions between Ray and Lilah, she was weary from whipping their modest home into a vision from Woman's Day Magazine and he was flat out tired of looking hale and hearty.

I overheard him as I slipped into the dimmer alcove to change the film.

"We've eaten dinner, we've cut the cake, flip the lights a couple of times and let's yell last call" Ray's voice wore the strain of sitting too long, leaning too long and smiling thru all of it. Then I heard the old Ray, pleading "Come on Lilah, Bobby won't sleep all afternoon, wouldn't you like some…..alone…time?"

I stopped before I loaded the last roll of film, no used being wound inside a camera if it wasn't going to get "shot". I snapped the camera case over the lens and rejoined the family in the parlor, "Hey, Mom, you and Dad take the camera home, I'm going to help Lilah and Ray clean up" if that didn't toss the hint out what would? Instead Mom immediately went about the task of leaving the place better than we found it, cushions puffed, coasters back in their holder and rugs sets straight.

I went into my "Scout" training and started wiping down the dishes and stacking them, quickly clearing the long formal dinner table in the cool dim dining room. By the time Lilah had made polite excuses for Ray's "fatigue" I had emptied the ashtrays in the parlor and the front porch. Once all the detritus of the celebration was cast out I slid to the back porch and watched a solitary Ray leaning on his crutches against the porch rail, he was staring at nothing or perhaps everything.

I had to hesitate, measure my words – actually all I wanted to say was thanks for the honor of being there with them and a good afternoon. Then the other side of my brain told me I owed him other words which wouldn't surface so I turned on my heel and made my good–byes to Lilah with my folks.

On the way home we were quiet that afternoon, perhaps my Father was hit by the reality of Ray's condition, my Mother wanting to hold Bobby, and me? I just wanted out of my life, where everything was just a silly millimeter out of my grasp.

The Lounge was quiet on Sundays, and that night I waited for Beth to drop in, either with that weird group or by herself, that was a bust. Our set cruised thru on auto pilot and before I even gave it a second thought I was strolling home, too late to catch a bus, too cheap to hail a cab. I heard the solitary hum of an automobile over my shoulder, it could have passed me yet it lurked, the engine glub-glub-glubbing in time with my footsteps. I went to flick my cigarette butt into the gutter and I turned to see the blood red Mercedes stop hard.

"Mick, Mick, is that you, Mr. St John?" It was Etienne, in a white dinner jacket, was he alone in this pristine automobile?

"You must be slumming in this neighborhood" I declared as I got closer to this piece of art on 4 wheels.

"Not in the least, this car is made to enjoy, as so many things in this world are" his hand flourished and the street light caught the glint of his ring, his gold watch.

"Would you need a ride to your home?" his tone was mollifying, as if I'd turn down a ride in that auto.

"You going that way?" I pointed military style with my full hand in the general direction of West Adams. With almost unseen speed he threw the front passenger door open. I went to open the back door to drop in my gig bag and the door light revealed the back seat's occupants.

I inhaled sharply at the smell of whiskey and pussy, two of the world's greatest solvents for direction and goals. The guy in the sharkskin suit cradled the gal, her head covered by a cloche, her face tucked into the niche of his neck and shoulder, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulder, her lithe body melded to his. Her extended legs lay across his thighs, her frothy petticoats like foam on a wave around her shapely calves and graceful ankles. The shoes hung delicately off her toes and in that split second of laying down my gig bag on the floor I tried to remember where I had seen them before.

"While we're young" Etienne wittily invoked, throwing the car into drive, his foot still on the brake yet prodding me to get in. I settled in for the ride, not prepared for the power of his foot on the gas, he offered a cigar from a leather case he extracted from his breast pocket, I demurred, we were closer that he knew and I wasn't going to sit up the rest of the morning to smoke the gift.

"Do you play private parties?" he kept his eye on the road as I wondered how a one eyed guy drives.

"Sure, especially when the checks clear" I snorted, I was tired, yet if he anteed up $50 bucks for one song, what would he pay for an evening?

"I would pay cash, of course" He snorted as if that was the only way he did business. As I pointed out the turns we chatted about his tastes versus his sister, Amelie's taste for jook joint and honky tonk style rhythms while he loved show tunes and ballads based on classical movements.

"Give me Katherine Grayson or Patrice Munsel, any evening, they breathe the life of the lyrics right into the melody" he struck the flat of his hand on the steering wheel, man-o-man, he was really into his songbirds.

"Well, we don't have a gal with us, they always want to fall in love, get their "Mrs." Degree you follow?" I scratched at my neck, loosened my collar. Was this guy an arts patron? He seemed kind of a light weight, his face was soft, and when he touched me his hand was soft, uncalloused.

"Ah, yes, the old till death do us part, wouldn't it be monumental to NOT deal with that entire death do us part?" his voice was silk, a rich tenor waiting for the venue to perform. Had he been an Opera singer before the War?

The car purred down my street, as much as I enjoyed holding a half intelligent conversation without Reggie's comments about tits and ass, it was early in the morning and I was bushed. Honestly, Etienne and I would never run in the same circles but I was grateful for the lift.

As I lifted myself out of the car I heard the guy's voice from the back seat, it was Alexander, Beth's date the other night, "Good night Mr. St John". Yanking the back door open, I bent to retrieve my gig bag and return the bidding, the woman in his lap shifted in her sleep, her face falling away from his shoulder.

My sociable words caught in my throat, Alexander was holding Beth Short in his arms "Good night" I choked out, unable to even say his name. Beth let go of a breath hyphenated sigh as her head lolled left and right. Then I turned on my heel, "IS she alright?" I guess my eyes were shooting daggers; Alexander hitched in his seat at my query.

"Ms. Short is just fine, for your information, we enjoyed ourselves at The Biltmore, perhaps she enjoyed herself a bit too much. Of course the entertainment wasn't as earthy and gritty as the Cat's Eye Lounge, yet we head home. . . . . Satisfied" Alexander's clipped European accent drew more bitterness out of his words, then he extended the last word as if he could exclude me from satisfying Beth.

**#9**

I stepped back haltingly, Beth looked asleep, I didn't see torn clothes or bruises, I closed my eyes hard, wishing a different vision when I reopened my eyes. It wasn't, so I slammed the door closed and leaned in the window to make my "good-byes" I don't even remember what I said, my gut had a riot inside fighting to get out.

I yanked open the unlocked door and flew up the staircase. I regained control, or something that passed for it once I dropped my coat on the bed and flopped there, staring at myself in the dresser mirror. I was white faced and haggard, I looked a million years old.

My dreams were wild in themselves. The fires of hell danced down Wilshire Boulevard and took a turn to Pershing Square toward The Biltmore Hotel. The grounds outside had been salted, as if the land was damned. Hands grew from the flames, squeezing the breath and life out of the hapless people on the street; they fell to the pavement and were immediately consumed as ash. I shook myself awake around noon once I had drank a few handfuls of water from the bathroom spigot I returned to bed and slept like the dead until 2:45 Friday.

I had shelled peas for Mom on the back porch, watching the laundry whip itself dry on the line. I had counted every blessed hour on my two days off, made myself available to my folks for any chore they had, anything to keep me busy, keep my mind off Beth.

Mom was beside me before I could hear the screech of the screen door, "What about that little girl you mentioned Sunday?"

I didn't want to go into it, didn't want to spill the fact that the girl who stole a piece of my heart was a foil for some ne're do well from another country.

"She's working," I made something up; "She's getting an audition over a Paramount". Mom leaned against the door frame and nodded, it was a knowing gaze she levied back at me. She nodded and accepted the full bowl of peas I had split out of their comfortable pods.

"Well, then maybe the two of you'll be a Hollywood Tour de force!" she nodded and returned to her kitchen, leaving me in my internally noisy solitude.

It was Thursday before I stood strumming at the Cat's Eye, and I had given up on seeing Beth. No phone on her end and she hadn't been in the most receptive mood to take a message in the car.

I had forgot what it felt like to "pine", so I sang my heart out, all night or at least until our break. Then I slipped a coin into the pay phone and called The Biltmore, "Etienne Chevalier?" I asked and the desk man didn't hesitate,

"Mr Chevalier is not receiving guests, would you like to leave a message?" 1 part officious, 1 part snooty and 1 part bored he waited for my answer.

"I'm trying to reach, . . . . . .. my sister, she's visiting him. Elizabeth Short, dark hair, black hair, she usually wears all black. Has she been there, at The Biltmore?" Could he catch my desperation? He could tell I was a spurned lover, or worse, her father.

"We respect the privacy of our guests, sir. Perhaps you'd leave a message we could deliver to Mr. Chevalier's suite" The various parts of his voice turned to empathetic, maybe he had a sister.

I left my number, actually the number at the club then shuffled back to the stage where I plucked out a little Stephen Foster. I'm sure they thought I had lost my mind, I was about to agree with them.

By the time I had finished the little ditty the mostly alcoholic crowd had gathered their beverages and settled down, couples were nestled in each other's arms, even the horny guys had settled to cuddle their "Miss Right Now".

By the time I finished Reggie had thumped me on the shoulder, "What kind of funeral music are you playing, Mick? Did some girl cut your heart out and eat in front of you?"

**#10, The Exorcism**

**January 9, 1947**

I didn't see Beth Thursday night. I didn't get a phone call. After the set I sat at the bar, flipping the Zippo I bought at the PX before I mustered out of the Army. In my periphery I saw Candy tilt her head toward the new bartender and within a minute he had a double shot of single malt before me. The good stuff, the stuff I had first tasted at Mr. Chevalier's table. The taste was growing on me; I wondered how much this habit would cost me over the course of my life…..

Candy tapped my shoulder, "Your buddy in the white dinner jacket is here, he wants the table in the front" I caught her cigarette breath and the "Midnight in Paris" cologne she slathered on a few hours ago. I snubbed out the Lucky Strike and inhaled the last of the riveting smoke before I spun on the bar stool to see Chevalier giving a salute from the brim of his black homburg. That quickly he removed the hat to reveal that patent leather black hair, he looked freshly shaved and ready to go all night. Where was everyone else?

Candy paraded him right past me, her back to him she winked as she passed me and did her little backward lean to afford him a view of her cleavage, "What's your poison tonight, Mr. C?"

"What's your best Irish Whiskey?" his voice purred in the din of the lounge and I knew what Candy was thinking as she stared into his eye, wondering what was under the patch. Was he disfigured? Was his eye mangled or missing? I nearly snorted as I saw her catch herself holding her breath at his crisp white jacket, the blood red rose boutonniere in the lapel so dark it hardly seemed real.

She shook her head to come back to now, then I watched her hips sway as she headed off for the only Irish Whiskey we had. She brought two glasses and the fifth to his petite round table. His eyes followed Candy as she worked her few tables around him, I figured he'd be a real hound by himself; surprisingly he sat back and watched the crowd and the band. The tilt of his head, the way he held the cigar he seemed lost in the lyrics of the set. Nothing like a string of Cole Porter hits to tempt the most reserved soul, between the bounce of the score and the double entendres I grinned just a bit along with him.

The first break he waved me over with a loop of his cigar in the air, as I strolled the few steps, loosening my tie for a break I scanned the crowd for Beth, even if she was with that guy from the back seat. Chevalier rose and came right up to me, as if a hug was warranted, a hand shake would do, trust me. Then he held the cigar in his left hand, out from us and he stepped toward me, leading his hand toward my face. I thought he was leaning in to pick some lint off me, then as his fingers passed my line of sight I felt the pad of his thumb skim my jaw, then his hand looped around my sweaty neck. Suddenly I was drawn right to his starched bosom of his dinner jacket. I thought I was going to suffocate in the embrace. It all happened so "road-runner" quick that I thought I had imagined it. I stumbled back, moved by his release, as quick as the embrace.

"Good Evening, Mick" His voice was cold honey, slow and sweet, "A cigar or perhaps you are saving that melodious voice of yours"

I deferred the smoke and sat, knees spread, elbows on them to keep a certain distance from him.

"A drink, perhaps? Nothing like getting a bit of stiff Irish, right?" his pour was done and slid in front of me before I could decline it.

I nodded a thank-you and sipped; Jameson went down slippery and hot. I nodded, waiting for the point of his visit tonight.

"You seemed upset the other night, I wanted to assure you that Miss Short is alive and kicking as you Americans say. Perhaps Alexander was a bit short with you, if you excuse the pun" He slipped his chin down to peer up at me thru black lashes on his good eye.

"Right, I was a bit abrupt myself" I had to learn how to get along better with strangers, somehow that night was clicking thru me head like an 8mm projector when the end of the film has left the teeth of the back reel, I was flying loose after seeing her passed out in another guy's arms.

"So, no hard feelings for Miss Short's choices?" He was on his third rocks glass of whiskey and not the least bit slurred or affected. What a guy…..

"We dated, that's all, and I don't like to see women in that situation, passed out" I'd be more polite in the future, yet I wouldn't back pedal on being concerned for Beth.

"We are harmless, simply enjoying the company of the exquisite young women of L.A. I promise you we only take was is. . . .freely given" That made me trust him even less.

"So, Mr. Chevalier, did you have a gig to book us?" I wanted to change my cloths after his last comment. What a sleaze meister.

"Regrettably, not at this time, Mick. My sister is jaded and wants to return to Vichy, Alexander has business in the Orient, so I lament that I will be traveling home also. I abhor being alone."

I was glad to see a departure in the future for Mr. C, I was hoping he'd forget where the Cat's Eye Lounge was. Yet, I found myself nodding slowly as he spoke, my body language turning more open to him, even mimicking his posture.

I got the 2 minute wink from Reggie and shuffled my feet to stand; just then, Mr. C's hand caught my wrist. "Mick, how about a song, for me?" he slid the bill, tented lengthwise across the table, another $50 for a few moments of a song, a few moments of his hanging on every lyric.

When my fingertips grasped the bill his hand was upon mine, his splayed fingers covering the back of my hand. Cold tendrils left his body and surged up my arm and I froze, not from the temperature but from his stare that met my gaze.

Cole Porter / Night and Day

_**Like the beat beat beat of the tom-tom When the jungle shadows fall**_

_**Like the tick tick tock of the stately clock As it stands against the wall**_

_**Like the drip drip drip of the raindrops When the summer shower is through**_

_**So a voice within me keeps repeating You, you, you**_

_**Night and day, you are the one, Only you beneath the moon or under the sun**_

_**Whether near to me, or far it's no matter darling where you are**_

_**I think of you Day and night, night and day, why is it so**_

_**That this longing for you follows wherever I go in the roaring traffic's boom**_

_**In the silence of my lonely room I think of you, Day and night, night and day**_

_**Under the hide of me there's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me**_

_**And this torment won't be through until you let me spend my life making love to you**_

_**Day and night, night and day**_

My heart rendered the words theatrically, for the benefit of the audience. I was ricocheting back and forth from being fascinated with Beth to being repelled by her behavior. As I sang I felt his lone eye wash me in his pain and abandonment

Once the song finished my eyes opened and characteristically Etienne was gone. The table empty, the bottle on the table empty, another $50. bill waiting for Candy to scoop up. The rest of the evening escaped my memory. I was weary and wanting sleep, I wanted peaceful sleep.

My Mother had an engaging habit. When she wanted my company at breakfast she'd set the table for three directly after she was finished with the dinner dishes. It made a gracious tableau on the mahogany dinner table, especially with the gay floral cloth napkins folded artfully over the charger plate.

About 3am I tripped into the house, dimly lit with the parlor light, I saw her "code". Sweet Mary, my Mother loved to use the brass charger plates she received so many years ago as a wedding gift. I took the steps two at a time to get cleaned up and get to sleep. I had to be up in 4 hours.

**Friday, January 10, 1947**

Cole Porter / Easy to love

The radio played low against the sound of the ticking of the toaster, the sizzle of the bacon and the whisk stroking the eggs to light scramble. I could smell the coffee, black and hot as the percolator belched the water thru the grounds. It gave a shiver and then Mom announced it was "up".

My father had beat me down to the table, all tied up in his charcoal pinstripes he ate without his jacket, a large napkin tucked into his shirt collar as he scooped sweet apple butter on his toast. He gave me a hearty nod and winked his mouth full.

I patted his back mutely as we made eye contact, then I stepped stealthily to creep up behind Mom, whipping the cooperation into the scrambled eggs.

"I can tell when you enter the room, sonny boy, it's that Bay Rum ya use, it's your marker" Mom was amused, she was in a remarkably light mood.

"OK, I can't pull anything over on you" I caught her shoulders in my hands and I felt her relax on the spot. It seemed to be the symbiosis we had, although back then it was just called a mother/son bond forged at birth and fostered sitting around the piano playing our favorite songs.

"Here, eat up" she turned balancing the cast iron skillet in one hand, the spatula in the other hand. Dad grinned his secret expression, the one he had when they had spent a little more time in bed. Then we all sat down to chow down.

"Your Father has surprised me with a little junket, we're going to San Francisco for a week, we're packing up and leaving after lunch today" That's when I saw her eternal flame in her eyes spark.

All I could do was nod, mouth full. I knew I cramped their style, the older I got, the more I knew I had to grow up and give them their space. Dad was still a vital guy for his age; Mom was one of those timeless beauties. One day I wanted to be just like them, in love forever.

**Saturday, January 11, 1947**

"Your boyfriend's back" Candy slid sinuously off the bar stool as she watched Etienne glide thru the door.

"Stop that" I shot back at her, and spanked her on the left cheek of her tight ass as she brushed by me, bumping her shoulder into mine. Candy's a swell gal to work with, I'd just never want to wake up next to her, that prospect is a little frightening.

"My boyfriend" slid into the round booth, the size of it dwarfed him, made him appear lonely, forsaken. Candy was there in a heartbeat bent over giving him sneaky peek at her cleavage while she took his order.

"He wants you to come by for a drink" Candy pooched her lips like a kiss and uncorked the Jameson's, setting two old fashioned glasses on her tray.

I turned on the bar stool and gave him a nod, he waved the Cuban cigar at me and I waited until Candy had lit it for him before I approached the table, hands deep into my pleated trousers, my cummerbund riding high and tight against the pleated formal shirt. I hadn't tied my bow tie yet, that was the last thing I did before stepping up to play, the damned thing strangled me.

"Good evening, Mr. C, how's life treating you?" I rocked back and forth on my heels, casually scanning the rest of the room, checking out the crowd filling in the smaller tables near the stage

"AH, Mick, tonight things are . . . . . .Fine" yet the resigned way he pronounced the few words led me to believe they were indeed FINE - F*cked up , insecure, neurotic and emotional. This guy was an attention seeking, fixated, overly expressive middle aged man; he needed either a girl or boyfriend. I couldn't figure out if he wanted impress and seduce me or just bend my ear $50. At a time.

Saturday night evaporated into a Jameson fog of grand Irish proportions, I remember the first break, paying attention to Mr. C's confessions of enjoying too much dining and drink in LA. The second break was less coherent, more jovial. I had actually gotten Mr. C to laugh, even though his eye seemed to hold itself back from joining the smile on his thin lips.

By last call, it thrilled me to be going to an empty home. Mr. C had left in the last set, well after enigmatically sending his ornately scripted note with the customary gratuity. This time he wanted to hear "I Get a Kick Out of You"

Cole Porter / I get a kick out of you

_**My story is much too sad to be told, but practically everything leaves me totally cold.**_

_**The only exception i know is the case, when I'm out on a quiet spree, fighting vainly the old enui**_

_**and i suddenly turn and see, your fabulous face.**_

I paid my respects to the crew, split the $50. amongst us and headed home. This time there was no lift in a vintage automobile. I slid the key into the door and rejoiced at being alone. The silence of the ice box cycling off and on, the old frame home settling in the early morning calm, it all pleased me.

I stripped in my room and enjoyed the cool tiles beneath my weary feet. Would I soak or would I shower? I showered and paid myself a little extra attention; I'd say the soap got the best of me. I craved Beth; it had been 10 days since I had lain in her bed, sharing pleasures in meshing hard flesh into supple, hot flesh.

Alone, a solitary physical release only reinforced my lost heart. I dried off deliberately and fell to sleep naked on top of the clean linen only to dream in torrents of confusion. By dawn I had awakened 3 or 4 times, not understanding what I dreamt, and craving rest, punched my pillow and rolled back to sleep.

Mother Nature played a cruel trick; she sent her songbirds after me. If music kept me up into the wee small hours of the morning, then it would be music waking me. Well at least it wasn't a cock crowing on the mornings after my wild nights in bed.

I shuffled down and made coffee, sure I could wrestle the percolator into making a couple of mugs of java. The fact that I did it naked, at least trodding and scratching behind the lace curtains gave me some sort of silly rush. I could get used to living alone.

Then the activity on the sidewalk picked up, families walking to church, some walking to the café for the pancake special. I jaunted upstairs for pair of boxer shorts, then claimed the paper on the porch and set out with my coffee for the shade on the back porch. Somewhere between the later birds who still managed to catch a worm and my finishing the front section of the paper I dozed off, feet up on the railing.

"Edith, Edith?" somewhere in a delusion I heard someone calling my Mother, was I dreaming something had happened to her on their trip? The light voice began again, "Edith, are you out back?" the screen door screeched and I shook suddenly from my half sleep in time to watch Lilah push past me, a gurgling Bobby at her shoulder in one arm, "Oh, Mick I'm sorry, the front door was open and I was looking for Edith" effortlessly she swung Bobby around to face me, bouncing him on a round hip as he blew spit bubbles. Knowing I was shooting blanks led me to see less "St John" in his cherubic face.

"Mom and Dad hit the road for a few days" I sat up and dropped the newspaper over my lack of clothing.

"Oh, how pleasant" She grinned as she turned and watched the birds gather at the feeder, still bouncing Bobby, "How about you come join us for an early dinner? I mean if you're solo, you might as well let me do the cooking" Was Lilah blushing at us being alone together for the first time in months? Or was the open newspaper covering what I wore the cause?

"That would be neighborly, what's Ray up to?" I watched Lilah step to the very end of the back porch, the furthest she could get from me.

"He's down for a nap, he just finished his exercise regimen, he got his bath and he was bushed." Her expression said she had two children on her hands.

"Then, let me get some clothes on and we can have a glass of tea, OK?" I rose holding the paper in front of me, presuming she'd say yes, she blushed and stayed at the end of the railing while I retrieved chinos and a shirt, "it's good to see you enjoying motherhood" I said as I held the door open to invite them into the kitchen.

"I couldn't do it without your Mother, I was nervous from the day I found out we killed the rabbit" Lilah spread the blanket from her shoulder into the basket Mom kept for Bobby's visits. I watched her nursing breasts sway as she bent over, her auburn hair swung free with her rising upright. Bobby stretched in his familiar home away from home.

I withdrew two tall glasses and the pitcher from the ice box. I wasn't sure if we'd have anything to talk about; she wasn't too chatty so far. I cut a lemon in quarters and turned with the full glasses to see Lilah sitting at the kitchen table, her chin balanced on the heel of her hand. I placed her tea next to her elbow and sat across from her, catching a gander at Bobby contentedly chewing his fists.

She broke the silence, "So what have you been up to? It's been a long time since we've seen you" I watched her eyelashes flicker as she drank her tea.

"Just working at the Cat's Eye Lounge, helping out around the house". I leaned back and stretched my legs out, instinctively crossing my arms behind my head as I described my tedious life, "What's the deal with Ray's job prospect, that sounds like an ace in the hole working at the VA".

"They felt he got a raw deal when the lost him in the system, so they treat him pretty well. We were living close there for a few months, but it's all falling into place. Your Mom helped me get thru it all".

We made small talk, she spun a few yarns about Ray getting used to the house with his issues. She crowed about how far he had come from his first day's home, and then she blushed and abruptly drank long on her tea. I chuckled at her, I knew from our experiences she's a passionate gal, "Mom's a treasure, I know she keeps me straight"

"Are you seeing anyone?" She didn't make eye contact on that question.

"I thought I was, it's. . . complicated, I thought we were tight and then she disappeared, I haven't heard from her since our New Year's Eve date" I shrugged and sat up, drawing my feet back toward me as I sipped my tea.

"Whoa, that's a poor way to start the year, I'm sorry, Mick" the corners of her succulent lips turned downward with her empathy. We were quiet for a bit, both sipping our tea while I watched her drag the glass's sweat down to the napkin

"Lilah, if I ask you something, about us. Would you tell me the truth?" I pushed the words out thru tight lips with a quiet voice.

She played with her hair, twisting in her chair, tucking her ankles over each other as she drew them in tighter. While her chin was tucked I heard her let out a long breath, "Truth, about what?" She downed her tea and rose quickly, whisking herself to the sink to rinse her glass, tossing the rendered lemon into the trash beneath the sink. She knew her way around my parent's home as well as I did.

I watched her look out the kitchen window at nothing in particular, and then she turned her backside against the cabinets.

"Who's Bobby's biological father?" There I sat, leaning over knees on my elbows, my hands in prayer for her truth.

Lilah's breath drew deeper and she wrung her hands up to under her chin, "My moment of truth came when I looked at him in your arms. As much as Ray and I tried to be husband and wife, . . . .you know,. . . . . there" she was uncomfortable talking about this when months ago we had been over each other's bodies with eyes, hands and tongues?

"When we were together for the first time, that night he came home, I did everything I could to. . . .arouse him. . . . . to . . . . ." she searched for words, as if "come" was too frank. "completion. He was so frustrated and finally when it happened that I could. . . ." the shyness was coming back, she closed her eyes, "get on top, I wasn't sure we'd . . . . . . finish" the word was devoid of romance, passion.

Had she just wanted to seal a deal to cover all our transgressions? Yeah, make whoopee the first night, regardless of whether either of you were "up for it". I guess my eyes narrowed or my body language shifted, she shrugged and drew her knuckle into her teeth, watching Bobby's movements slow as he fell into a nap.

"So, were you pregnant when Ray came home?" this was pushing my buttons, I'll admit it only takes one little dedicated swimmer to get the job done, but I was feeling left out of the loop, as if she never intended to spill her secret.

"I hadn't even thought about it, I was irregular all the time you all were gone, doctor said it was nerves, me working long hours on the assembly lines. I had lost some weight too."

"WERE YOU PREGNANT when I left?" I hadn't shifted or moved toward her, my tone dropped deeper and the boom of my exasperation made her jump although I never wanted to crush her.

"I had a visit from Aunt Flo right before you checked in with me; I had one then never had another visit. I don't expect another for a while since I'm nursing" She was sheepishly hanging her head between shrugged shoulders, now she stood silent, the only sound the baby whistling in his sleep on the floor at my feet.

"When did you go to the doctor?" I realized I was treading on her ice-thin emotions.

"I couldn't have gone to our doctor while Ray was out of town" she shook her head, her voice strangled by sentiments.

"So when did you go?" I was wrapped in the feeling of slowly tearing a bandage off scabbed skin, a whole body of scabbed skin.

"Two weeks after Ray came home, Doctor said he saw it all the time, two weeks was all it took, he called my pregnancy a Victory Baby".

"Well, I just got some news that tells me Bobby is Ray's Victory Baby" I spoke slowly, softly, measuring each of my words, "I went to the Doctor, just the other day"

"You didn't talk about us did you?" all her shame bubbled to the top, her eyes were wide open in shock.

"Lilah, I had no reason to talk about us, it was a checkup" I lied, it seemed so easy. "Anyway, since I took a few hits in that area myself I figured I get checked, there….." I drew my knees together at the thought of the doctor's hands examining my genitals.

She smirked as she had so many times in bed at the mention of "little Mick" then she drew serious again waiting for my news.

"Seems that I don't have a lot going on down there. In fact, the doctor seemed to think I was sterile, so maybe he is a Victory Baby" I nodded downward to her sleeping cherub.

"Mick, we could suppose all day. For Ray's sake I like to think about it that way. The doctor actually said the same thing about Ray, maybe the two of you went thru more together than you knew. The specialist told me it just takes one determined sperm" Her cheeks flushed at the technical word, I thought it was cute, cause, after all we had done – how could the word "sperm" make her silly?

"Then I guess my next question is. . . . When were you going to tell me there MIGHT be a chance he's mine?" I dragged my palms up my face and drew my fingers thru my hair then slapped my knees out of frustration, angst, confusion.

That was the straw-breaking question, her shoulders shook, her head bobbed and I heard the high pitched sigh as her tears began to fall.

Would she mind if I caught her fall? I hesitated to stand and rush her, catch her in my arms and let her head fall on my shoulder? I did it anyway and she cleaved right to me, melted into my arms, her soft breasts quaking into my chest with each sob. She smelled like coffee and cinnamon and baby lotion.

"Lilah, love, it's OK now" How did I know that? It probably was miles away from being OK.

"I didn't want it to drive you from us" she sobbed, her voice muffled in my shirt, "then that's exactly what happened, you stopped coming by and Ray got upset because he thought you were ashamed of him" I wiped at her eyes with a soft dishtowel out of the drawer, "he figured he scared you away with his being broken" she blew her nose and I wanted to smile yet I figured that wasn't prudent at this point. "Then he started drinking, and taking his medicine with the whiskey. Old Jack had to carry him up the cellar steps one morning, he was crying about being half a man and he'd be half a Father".

Old Jack was the Fordham's neighbor; he'd been good friends with Ray's parents. If anyone could talk a veteran out of slump he could, he'd lost an eye in WWI and still became a skilled jeweler.

"Honey, why didn't you call me?" now her arms were loosely around me, both of us doing the "comfort" dance to the tune of "just a gigolo"

Louis Prima - Just a gigolo

"You were the last person he wanted to see, he said he'd just be more ashamed" she licked the tears from her lip and sniffled, "I got Jack because he had seen it all before" No doubt One Eyed Jack had seen enough with one eye that Ray figured he'd withhold judgment.

So Ray had put Lilah thru the ringer, on numerous nights he'd climb inside a bottle and come out of it clawing for a sense of normalcy. I wondered how she had managed to carry the pregnancy, weren't women supposed to be in a delicate condition then? Evidently Lilah was delicate like spider's silk.

Holding her pregnancy as well as her marriage together she steeled her way thru all those months. No wonder she was a regular over coffee with my Mother. Lilah would wisp into our house, silently while I slept the day away, and then take on all the advice my Mother could impart and return to the storybook Victorian and keep up the façade of the post-war housewife.

I held her shaking form close but not too close, "Lilah, honey, how do you want to look at this?" I dropped my arms from around her and caught her face in my hands, "Am I in your lives, or out?"

**#11 The Sign of the Cross**

**Sunday, January 12, 1947**

(Roman Catholic Baptism Ceremony)

Et hoc signum sanctae Crucis, + quod nos fronti eius damus, tu, maledicte diabole, numquam audeas violare.

(And this sign of the holy Cross, which we make upon his (her) forehead, do thou, accursed devil, never dare to violate)

Lilah's eyes fluttered as if stunned by my query. She had tried to pull away, I wouldn't let her. I gently kissed her forehead and then released her, stepping back from her still and comely form.

"What do you really want to hear, Mick, that you are Bobby's Father? Where would that leave you?" she turned on her heel and ran the spigot for a glass of water, thinking evidently made her thirsty.

"It would leave me with a heavy burden that I haven't taken responsibility for my actions. That I fell short of our son's needs." I felt my hair stand on my arms when I said "our son's needs"

Lilah finished gulping the water and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, both hand flew to her forehead as if it aided her thinking, "Mick, this cannot leave this room, ever"

"You have my word on it, Lilah, I swear" I stayed two arm's lengths away, one kiss was all I needed on her forehead albeit I didn't need more temptation in a cotton house dress and round toed pumps.

"Then it's a devilish discussion, a confidence we'll never violate" her eyes were buried in her prayful hands. I waited until she dropped her hands to her side and I nodded, almost not wanting to break the calm.

I thought sharing mealtime with the 3 of them would be edgy, that I would be hearing innuendos or veiled insinuations, instead I heard the rhythmic slapping of lace drapes fluttering at the windows, the whisper of rubber wheel chair wheels as Ray maneuvered around the large country kitchen, pulling himself up to the broiler to check cheese bubbling on the twice baked potatoes.

"Hey, Mick, I got my hair cut the other day, Sam, that World War II pilot was down at the Barber shop reminiscing about his days in the Air Force. "In 1942," he says, "the situation was really tough. The Germans had a very strong air force. I remember" he continued, "one day I was protecting the bombers and suddenly, out of the clouds, these fokkers appeared. At this point, some of the boys snicker."

I noticed the sly smile arriving on Ray's face as Lilah shook her head, pulling together the rest of our dinner, gracefully moving around the two of us lugs while we basically got in her way.

"So Sam says, I looked up, and right above me was one of them. I aimed at him and shot him down. They were swarming. I immediately realized that there was another fokker behind me. Now this instant the teenage kid is about laugh out loud. The Barber stands there, stropping his razor and says, "I think I should point out that 'Fokker' was the name of the German-Dutch aircraft company. All of a sudden the kids are just dumbstruck and it gets real quiet as the Barber begins my shave with that straight razor, then Sam starts again, "That's true," says the pilot, "but these fokkers were flying Messerschmidts."

Lilah blushed, I guess she had heard the joke a couple of times yet blue humor wasn't her style. I snicker, nodding along with him, seeing how much a good laugh buoyed his spirits.

It wasn't like dinner with my parents, yet it felt odd, three of us who knew each other from first grade now sitting at a dinner table like adults. In a home where we had run around like Cowboys and Indians shooting each other with cap guns, now we ate civilized with authentic table manners.

Bobby gave us a chance to be adults, his afternoon nap extended all the way until our coffee and dessert. Lilah was relieved to get a hot meal, Ray was thankful to be holding Lilah's attention with his compliments on her cooking and loveliness along with some genuine conversation that didn't include bowel movements or breastfeeding.

The oven heat had caused her auburn hair to fall in ringlets around her face; blooming roses in her cheeks that transformed her into a Botticelli angel. Banter drifted with the rhythm of lazy tennis game, questions volleyed between them as easy answers fell back in our laps. I helped clear the table while Ray took care of his business in the lavatory; I kept at Lilah's arms lengths not inviting another kitchen kiss like the one I got down the street.

"It sure was a pleasure having sharp conversation at dinner" Lilah whispered as she wrung out the dishrag and flattened it out over the center of the double sink.

"What you mean your son isn't quoting Tom Sawyer already?" I tucked the chairs under the dinner table and gave it a military inspection. I had to be guarded; I had wanted to declare, "our son". I chastised myself, as I dare not show any discontent at their happiness. I examine my words, this is "Their happiness" and as a Godfather I get to watch and share…..not own their happiness.

"Got a show tonight?" Ray bellowed as he rolled back from the first floor powder room.

"Yeah, I need to get home and press my shirt, steam my jacket so I don't look like I had a night of I & I *" I slapped Ray's shoulder and headed back to the kitchen where Lilah was washing out the milk jugs and leaving them in the metal box at the side door. Ray was tuning in the evening radio show, I guessed they'd be ready to roust their son and keep him active until about 10 pm so he'd sleep thru the night. I let myself out the side door, holding sacred the sight of Lilah bent over the milk box.

Sunday evenings at the Cat's Eye were usually sublime, smooth music rolling from set to set without any harsh crescendos, we'd go off on some easy roll, then someone called from the dark,

"PLAY That's why the lady is a tramp", no voice in particular, I didn't see a cigar burning in the dark or a hammy hand holding a folding note.

The Lady is a Tramp - Frank Sinatra

That's OK, I played like gangbusters, leaving the rest of the guys in the dust as Reggie sang a la Frank Sinatra, rousting me to pick some string time you know, wind out and play an extended solo to give Reggie a chance to chill his pipes.

While one side of my head fell into the groove, the other side of my wrinkled brain wondered if I'd see Beth again. Nothing made sense about Mr. C; I hadn't seen his family or entourage in days. I decided to flush those thoughts and fall into the pocket with the band. With the music in me the wee small hours of the morning smacked us with a last call and the cruelty of the house lights, forcing us to wrap it up and head home.

A quiet walk without the shadow of Mercedes got me home in no time. I did my little naked romp thru the house in the dark without bumping into many pieces of furniture and surrendered to a cool shower where I washed the smoky beer air off me, waking me up enough to be hungry in all the wrong ways.

I wouldn't dare conjure Lilah's form with me in the tile temple, I went the route thinking blond and all I saw was Candy's snarky face as soaped myself liberally, I shook my head to scatter that thought-it would be a while before I'd fall for a blond thinking of the fallout from 2 dates with Candy. Could I even remember Mr. C's sister's face? Not that she'd be able to pick me out of a crowd either. So I was back to Beth Short, all of her ebony hair and red lips, I wanted to fall down hard into a crime of passion with a woman with a thirst for Gomorrah.

The clock struck 4 am and I still wandered the dark house, ice swirling in a glass of Irish whiskey summoned usually for birthdays and anniversaries. My lips were hot for a woman branded by spreading creamy thighs for the right guy. I was Mr. Right Now seeking Miss Right Now. My quest was a pathetic attempt to get some sleep, perhaps to dream of what had happened to Beth. Post War America had bred a generation with a fair share of predators and I was feeling if maybe I was their poster child.

Was there any fear in a Monday the 13th? I woke late, danced the push mower back and forth across the yard and walked it down to the Fordham's. "Anybody want to borrow a lawn mower?" I knocked on the screen door frame and bellowed to where Lilah and Ray were feeding Bobby. They got the "joke" and the afternoon was invested in my walking behind Ray while he leaned on the handle of the rotary mower. Together we took halting steps back and forth across the lawn. My heart caught in my throat as I felt the tension and effort Ray put into each step. In my eyes, the measures of a man will never be height or wealth.

We caught some shade on the porch with glasses of lemonade, we watched the breeze while we shot the shit and then Lilah came out with a tray of fruit and sandwiches. Mid bite Ray spoke up, "Mick, could you give Lilah and Bobby a ride over the well-baby clinic? They have an appointment 8:15 am Wednesday, I just can't drive well enough and didn't want her alone in the car with the baby"

I nodded and made a mental note to set my alarm to be up in time. This Godparent thing was skating seriously close to being a new responsible reality for me, made me feel included, on track.

"Oh, Ray, I could call a cab…." Lilah watched the foot traffic on the street, as if distracted, the stray hairs from her headband danced around her face as if it craved her beauty.

"I'd feel better if someone was with you, that is not the best neighborhood" Ray put his proverbial foot down and Lilah and I shared a resigned smile.

**Monday Evening, January 13, 1947**

That night my ears where assailed, "Hey, Mick" Candy wailed as I came from the back of the lounge, dropping my gig bag to warm up.

"What have I done now, Candy? Left the toilet seat up? Stolen your last fag?" I was always on her shit list for something.

"Letter came for you this afternoon, some guy in a uniform, you know like a chauffeur, here, have a look-see" Candy sailed the heavy envelope down the bar into my hands, I had wished it came with a whiskey.

"_**Dear Mick:**_

_**Got a great "in" with Alexander over at MGM, **_

_**he say's if I had been there in 38 they wouldn't have hired a**_

_** Brit to play Scarlett O'Hara, how do you like that?"**_

_**I'll be traveling with Alexander; we're seeing Mr. C and his sister **_

_**tomorrow night, it's looking like a big party, **_

_**wish you weren't working every night.**_

_**Love and special kisses you know where,**_

_**Beth Short"**_

Truth was I didn't work every night, I conjectured when that pansy ass Etienne came in tonight I'd slide the $50. Bill back toward him and buy my way into that game. So I tied the bow tie, slid on my dinner jacket and smacked Reggie's back before we opened the first set….. …. It was going to be smooth sailing straight on to the morning star, so I thought.

The crowd was deep, clapping when they should, wailing when they should and definitely sending up endless drinks. The jazz virgins here tonight ate up what we laid down and when the night was done it felt bigger than any of the nights in the last months. Had Beth been down front it would have been the icing on the cake.

The Victorian house, proud and painted stood outlined in the waning moon, just scant nights ago it had shown itself full and glorious, now the moon was waning, as I had imagined Beth was slipping away from me. Stripping down in the laundry room it was a little harder to negotiate the hallway, I'd stub my toe and instinctively cover my package, didn't want to bounce that off the furniture.

This time I showered and fell into bed, sleep covered me like the chenille coverlet and burying my face in my pillow I fell into a fog of a hallucination.

The Biltmore was brightly lit, awash in a golden glow, a throng of party goers bumping shoulders navigating between cocktail parties. Tuxedoed staff made polite hand signals toward the Emerald Room as the guests lit from limousines; it was glamour and glitz as if there had never been a war. Damn it all, Mr. C was holding court at the table nearest the band, now our band, a righteous 12 piece that could swing and sway like Sammy Kay. Mr. C's usual guests were doing what came naturally for them, Beth enthralled by Alexander's stoic attentions to her and his sister being the jaded Queen of Sheba. How could anyone that loaded be so bored?

I had no seat, no place card in a Spenserian script assigning "Mr. Michael St John" to even a back table. I stared as the figures danced by the mirrors and their grace drew me to gawk and that was never made for a polite guest (or so my Mother claimed). From the velvet draped corner of the room it was up to me to eavesdrop, gawk and wonder at the event and what would happen next. Was I here to see the future or learn about the past? Other than Beth, who was I here to witness?

The music took on a gypsy edge and it could have been a scene out of central casting, circles of dancers moved within larger circles arms raised as they sung exuberantly in a foreign tongue. The musicians fiddled as if their existence depended on their briskly increased cadence, then as the music stopped abruptly Alexander and Beth appeared as the wall of dancers split for them.

In a way the dance known as "the dance of the underworld" took on darker tones thru Alexander's expressions and intense strength. I was aghast at his strength as they acted out passionate embraces with near violent segues to their next steps. Beyond the speed and implied violence I was totally engaged in his eyes, his eyes burned like a hound from hell and she ate it up with voracious gusto. They were primitive, not vulgar, they were passionate not overtly sexual. His slender fingers wrapped around her throat as he seemed to control her sway and then his focus would zone to her arms, where his ivory hands would glide to catch her wrists and entwine their arms as the pranced a predatory circle around each other-caught in each other's hypnotic gaze.

Not a soul spoke or moved from their tables, reverently they observed, seeming to worship their moves. My heart caved at her worshiping him, then in a flash all that the dance had been was eclipsed by the music's end and her body splayed across his knee as if she were expired, lifeless.

The crowd focused entirely on Alexander, not a drop of perspiration on him, his cool ratio thru the roof. His eyes seem to sparkle as she lay still then he dropped his preternaturally curled lips to her white throat. I gasped as blood sprayed from the two of them and it rocked me from what I thought was a sound sleep.

In my sleep, what had I seen?

* Intercourse and Intoxication (based on "R & R")

**#12 the Imposition of Hands**

**Wednesday, January 15, 1947**

Oremus: Aeternam, ac iustissimam pietatem tuam deprecor, Domine, sancte Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus, auctor luminis et veritatis, super hunc famulum tuum (hanc famulam tuam) ut digneris eum illuminare lumine intelligentiae tuae: munda eum, et sanctifica: da ei scientiam veram, ut, dignus) gratia Baptismi tui effectus , teneat firmam spem, consilium rectum, doctrinam sanctam.

Let us pray: O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God, Author of light and truth, I implore Thine everlasting and most just goodness upon this Thy servant, that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to enlighten him with the light of Thy wisdom: cleanse him and sanctify him, give unto him true knowledge; that, being made worthy of the grace of Thy Baptism, he may hold firm hope, right counsel and holy doctrine

The staccato of the alarm rousted me, it had been a while since I had been up at sunrise yet after the inferno of a night terror that I had I welcomed the calm morning birds and the familiar clink of milk bottles at the side door.

Showered, shaved and wearing my "old man cloths" (dress trousers, sport shirt and jacket) I took brisk steps to get to the Fordhams.

"Do yourself a favor, Lilah, just bring back lunch from that little place we'd go before the war, I'm not cooking" he jibed, in fact Ray never cooked; we all got a belly laugh at that one.

Lilah settled into the back seat with Bobby's bassinet and we rolled down the road in their 41" Ford. The mendacity of me playing house like this settled in the pit of my empty stomach, you see if I was the husband I'd have been up in time for breakfast with the family. The road was open and smooth, I whistled Cole Porter all the way, the radio just a cacophony of static that irritated Bobby.

I parked at the clinic front door and unfolded the wieldy pram while Lilah comforted her fussy boy. On a lark, I held out my hands for Bobby, Lilah's resigned sighs told me she was weary, I held the little blue bundle in my left arm as he squirmed against me. I wanted my stare to carry some comfort, some peace to the child and then we locked eyes and he bubbled a wet sentence to me. I curved my hand around the side of his face, yearning to fill him with comfort and peace. We were silent there for a few seconds and then I felt his tiny body drop the tension and with a flutter of his strong legs his fluttered his eyelashes at me and cooed long and sweet.

"Show off" Lilah jibed as she spread out the pram blanket preparing to accept him back.

"Be nice to Mommy" I admonished with a wink and I handed him off. The corners of her eyes lifted with her smile and I nodded as I held the door open for her to push thru, "I'll park and be in a sec", and she smiled shyly walking out of my sight.

The street level parking bunched directly around the clinic and I found myself driving in circles looking for a place big enough for this boat, when a man trusts you with his son, wife and auto you have to return all of them in pristine order.

"Make a hole, make it wide" my sergeant major would harp while he pushed thru inspections. I had wished he had cleared a path. There was no morning sun to warm the car as I pulled right onto Norton Avenue between 39th and Coliseum streets, no buildings there should have been yard of curb to cozy up to. It was a grey, overcast morning as I straightened the wheel and killed the engine. I inhaled deeply, thinking about walking back into a clinic and sitting with Ray's wife and my son. I had to bug out, move up the coast, and set up a bank account something in Trust for Bobby, definitely not at my Father's bank.

Until Bobby gave me those moments of grace my soul had been about as barren as the acres of ground surrounding me. The neighborhood was new, this street austere except for wild outgrowths of waist high weeds. The heavy breeze moved them ever so gently and I was alone except a woman and her toddler daughter ahead of me. She had the particular stroll of a woman on her way somewhere, then something caught her eyes and she edged off the sidewalk into the grasses, taking light cat steps.

What had she seen? Shrieking she clutched her toddler and covered her little eyes. The identical brown curls on their heads shook, I couldn't hear words, just the wailing of a distressed woman and confused child. My feet carried me there in seconds, grabbing both of them, pulling them away from whatever had set them off.

"Monsters… … it had to be monsters… .. .." her brown eyes were pie wide, her lipstick smeared from holding her daughter to her face to shield her from a brutal view. I turned them to the street, trying to comfort them as much as a perfect stranger could after being shocked. I had to see what she was talking about.

"Call the police, over there," I reached in my pocket for a coin and pushed her away from the field. When I heard her feet hit the street I turned and took heavy steps toward whatever it was. From a distance "It" appeared to be a discarded store mannequin, taken apart and splayed as if 12 year old boys had pretended to have sex with a "model" from the Broadway Department. Two steps closer and I knew it wasn't.

BLACK DAHLIA-"Black Dahlia" (Bob Belden) Instrumental "Black Dahlia" (Bob Belden) Please open a second window in YouTube to enjoy the enigmatic tune

The mother was right; it had been a monster's handiwork. I froze at the sight of the grey pallor of her body. I had seen war, bloodletting in uniform, bodies strewn by shell blasts – I wasn't prepared for deliberate death, posed for shock value.

What stunned me first? This woman had been cut in half; the two halves separated by less than a foot. Her body had been flagrantly placed with her legs spread eagle. No blood, no blood, my eyes sought the one familiar thing from my Medic training, yet there was no blood, she seemed to be scrubbed clean before being dumped.

My hand flew to my heart and I prayed she hadn't known what was happening while they did this to her. Every attempt to make this sexual had been a twisted victory, whoever bound and tortured her had been a misogynist of the highest order. Ghastly as it appeared, her lower torso seemed to be trying to sit up as if she had been sitting at the time of her murder.

This wasn't the spoils of war; this was the ultimate in expressed contempt for women or at least this woman. My eyes hadn't even traveled to her upper torso where more taunting cuts had been exacted; I swallowed and turned to the sidewalk, watched as the poor lady cried into the telephone across the street. My head spun as I lost the cup of coffee I had for breakfast, I doubled over and upchucked until I was light headed and dry heaving.

When I yanked the handkerchief out of my pants pocket I frantically wiped my mouth, I spit what bile was left and I blinked to make the horror go away, yet it didn't. With a cautious step forward I craned my neck to see what the butcher had done to her upper torso, the cruel slices advancing up her breasts were a prelude to the hacking cuts from the corners of her mouth back to her ears.

In war I had heard of "The Glasgow Smile" or the "Chelsea Grin" exacted by pillaging miscreants who had gone renegade from their units. They'd inflict savage cuts slashed from the corners of their mouth to the dying invader's ears. If battle wounds didn't kill them, they'd likely bleed to death.

With the horrid discovery I shook by way of outrage that the devil left his victim for some unsuspecting citizen to find, I turned to see the poor woman collapsed to her knees, still holding her young child, laying shaking hands on either side of the child's petite face to hold her attention from what the adults had found.

I had lost track of time not wanting to leave until the police arrived, suddenly I wondered if Lilah would need help with Bobby or if perhaps they were done and wondering where I was. The morning swirled around me, a vicious torrent of stark images, I was hypnotized by the sight of the girl's ravaged face, trying to imagine her age or her beauty in life. Her hennaed hair a rage of waves framing her unnatural death mask and again physically repulsed as I distinguished who it was…this butchered woman was Beth, Beth Short.

It was my turn to break down, fall on my knees to the sidewalk, my face in the crook of my elbow. I couldn't reconcile my shock, not right now.

Cops swarmed, reporters pushed, photographers spit on light bulbs and swiftly shoved them into their camera flash units. Voices, all questions and orders overwhelmed the three of us as we huddled between two men in blue. Without our noticing it, the lady with child and I had been danced over to a black and white unit. I remember saying something about being needed around the corner and the last suit to arrive, the detective, tucked a crisp white business card in my sweaty hand sending me off.

The Clinic bustled with pacing mothers and colicky babes. Crisp nurse's caps made their way thru the room, escorting the patients down long linoleum hallways into exam rooms. I didn't see Lilah, so I fingered the business card and sat. And sat….. Picking apart what I thought were Beth's last days, was she with them? The other night, had she really sent me the note? Did I even know her handwriting if I saw it?

I sat there, lost in a shit storm, feeling totally out of place until I felt Lilah's hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, champ, I thought we lost you" her large eyes sought mine and I rose, leaving her hand on my shoulder because it just felt so normal.

"There was an, an," I stumbled on words, some place so pure as a Pediatrician's office should be sullied by the mention of murder so foul, "accident, me and another woman had to give our statements". I lowered my voice, speaking closer to her ear than socially acceptable in public; her light cologne calmed me immediately. How do women do this to a chump?

I couldn't drag the two of them back to the spectacle around the corner, I slipped back to the car unnoticed and attempted to be "company" for the ride to the café to pick up lunch for the grownups.

I spread the wax paper wrapped subs on the kitchen table while Lilah nursed and changed Bobby. Mechanically I moved, bumping into the counter, off the chair and ricocheting to the Frigidaire for three bottles of beer. I needed liquor and would drink all three if Lilah and Ray wouldn't join me. I cracked my bottle and swigged, upended the cold, gold fluid didn't begin to wash away the sting.

We ate without conversation, listening to the radio and when the news flash hit Ray saw it, Lilah suspected it. I had been the one of "the two who called authorities". My cheerless tale of infatuation with Beth Short spilled between the three of us.

Ray's hand caught mine, and we shared a "wartime" expression, something silent and empathetic. I nodded and he shook his head, "I'm sorry, Mick, I never met her but we were looking forward to it". Lilah's eyes welled yet the tears didn't fall, she caught them with a bright printed napkin then she skittered around cleaning up the sandwich wrappers. Pouring something cold and wet that would bring me back to reality, not drown me in alcohol.

They wanted to watch me like a broken bird; I just wanted to be alone. By the time I left the comfort of their home the three of us were in tears. My entire walk home the flies buzzed, competing with the essentials as I had seen them splayed on a lot in Leimert Park.

That day my grief was like my shadow in the sun, so long in the morning I felt as if I could trip over it, by Noon it would disappear and I'd think I had shook it, then as the sun began to set it would find me and wrap itself around me any way I turned.

High rollers come into the Cat's Eye Lounge and drop a lot of cash for Mick and his band to serenade them. Mr. Chevalier, a character with an eye patch seems to be fascinated with Mick, it unsettles him a bit. Yet the entire party of 3 couples seems a bit odd especially since the 3rd couple is his dream date from New Year's Eve, Beth Short.

**#13 The Solemn Exorcism**

Priest: Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Dei + Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Iesu + Christi Filii eius, Domini et Iudicis nostri, et in virtute Spiritus + Sancti, ut discedas ab hoc plasmate Dei N, quod Dominus noster ad templum sanctum suum vocare dignatus est, ut fiat templum Dei vivi, et Spiritus Sanctus habitet in eo. Per eundum Christum Dominum nostrum, qui venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem.

Priest: I exorcise thee, every unclean spirit, in the name of God the Father + Almighty, in the name of Jesus + Christ, His Son, our Lord and Judge, and in the power of the Holy + Spirit, that thou be depart from this creature of God N, which our Lord hath deigned to call unto His holy temple, that it may be made the temple of the living God, and that the Holy Spirit may dwell therein. Through the same Christ our Lord, who shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire

Someday a long time from now, if I live to be a very old man all the terror I saw on that mother's face will be replaced by the smiles of my wife, my kids, and satisfaction of a job well done in a calling I cannot even foresee.

How long will I have to live to forget what happened to Beth Short? So she's gone down in history as "The Black Dahlia", each hour the radio repeats the same gruesome news. I flipped the radio off, sat in the dark and smoked half a pack of Lucky Strikes on the back porch in my undershorts. When the silence was too much, I set a stack of records on the turntable and opened the window to listen to the snap and pop of a phonograph needle on the turntable as George Gershwin tickled the ivories.

The moon was high behind the trees when I had realized my eyes were cried dry, that my lungs burned from drawing the hot smoke in only to forcefully expel the captivating nicotine thru my nostrils. I had hung the back yard in smoke rings, the haze seemed to attach to the dew damped foliage.

There wasn't a thing for me to do; oddly the detectives didn't see me as a person of interest. Sure they had a jaundiced eye at my chosen profession; musicians seem hinky, unstable, given to fits of drug induced mania. Then when I thought they'd cuff me and haul me down to the station they looked at my full name and some guy in the distance shook his head as he chewed on a toothpick and I was dispatched to join Lilah at the clinic. I take that "get out of jail card", I never want to be headed where they send Beth's murderer.

Nothing I could do about the day, I cracked the lever on the ice tray and emptied the entire tray, and sullying Mom's favorite tea glass with Gin and Tonic, a triple in fact. If I was going to Hell I might as well ride the polished hand basket.

I'd take a page out of Lil' Orphan Annie's playbook…."Just thinkin' about Tomorrow clears away the cobwebs, and the sorrow 'Til there's none! "

The last sounds I remember were Debussy's waterfall of melody against the backdrop of my heavy breath.

Debussy, Clair de lune (piano music)

Wrapped in cotton sheeting I rode the dream highway past the Chevalier's and that character that held Beth in the back of the Mercedes. Sure I had spilled all about them to the Detectives, I was sure the Cat's Eye would be crawling with flatfoots handling glasses of Tonic with a wedge of lime, passing for gin drinkers while they assayed the crowd in the lounge. Even though I told the cops they were taking a plane to NYC I figured they watch us all for a few weeks.

Somehow in the middle of the last set the squidgy looking guy holding his tonic and lime with both hands got on my nerves. The entire night Reggie hadn't burned one, for fear the Homicide mopes would bust us for weed. I was on edge and could have enjoyed the smoothing smoke of a few puffs. Bozo the mope shifted his eyes one too many times as I sat my guitar down and headed for two fingers of Gin.

"Mickey, my man, how do you play away when you New Year's Eve babe is laying on a slab getting the once over by the Morgue crew?" the weasel's lips barely moved as he lost his mind bugging me.

"Excuse me?" I wiped the sweat off my lip with the back of my left hand, my right hand grasping the chilled bar glass.

"Tell me, didn't this joint entertain a few rogues from across the Atlantic, you know those with a few high dollar habits?" He supposed we had some sort of secret club here? That Chevalier and his clan signed some agreement to hold some "membership" at a joint like the Cat's Eye?

"Don't think so, Bub. Anything else you want to get the skinny on, walk it out the door. The only thing we investigate here is who's wearing panties and who's not" I eyed Candy as she slithered by, her empty tray carried behind her, obscuring the sight of her ass cheeks as she vibrated on to the next table.

Discourse, chat, whatever you call it, you don't come into this joint for intelligent conversation and epiphanies.

"Sly dog that you are, Mickey, what did you have to do that night, that you weren't with Elizabeth Short?" his lips twitched after he uttered her name. That was all it took.

I swigged the gin down, felt the hit on my empty gut and dragged my damp hands down the hips of my trousers. My fingers fisted and released a few times, then I caught the mope's shoulders, lifting him to his toes.

"You don't know how close you are to landing on the pavement" We were nearly belt to belt while I breathed hot gin breath down his face, his eyelids closed and his lips quivered, "Let me induce you to find another club tonight, what's your name, Bub?" I was shuffling the two of us through the crowd as they were just noticing the brouhaha. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, then I let the little man down to his heels right next to the door.

"They should be looking at a boyfriend scorned, shouldn't they? Some guy who was a sawbones in the Army, who could scythe off a friend's foot in a barn?" he mewed the words out as if he had been beaten to say them, I looked around the room to see if he was operated like Edgar Bergan's dummy. I wondered if he really was a cop.

"Are you a cop?" my eyebrows knit over dark eyes as I watched him nearly wet himself.

"Naw, who'd work for that kind of dinero? I'm a PI" he pulled at my grasp, his paws too sweaty to move me and that just riled me more, that was it.

"How about we take your sorry ass out, stick a wick in your mouth and use you for a gas lamp?" I had to pull him up a few inches for our eyes to meet. The thought of my lighting the fool must have extinguished whatever burning desire he had to crack the case of the century. He wiggled like a 12 year old girl and threw him across the hood of the nearest car; he scratched away from me, his rubber sole shoes grabbing at the car's contours.

I couldn't help it, was it his cowardly retreat or his mentioning the field amputation I had to do in the Ardennes, I ripped the windshield wiper off the car and beat him, I beat him bad. I whipped hard sideways starting at his hips; I loosed the change from his pockets as dimes bounced off the car hood. I can't even remember what I said as I worked out my life's frustrations on this scapegoat. By the time I got to his head he was curled over and all I did was swipe at his neck, I wanted to bloody his nose and all I accomplished was marking his tan jacket with black streaks.

A crowd didn't gather, they gave me the solitude to banish my own demons, when I walked back into the club nobody even noticed I was missing. I slicked back my hair, tucked my shirt back into my trousers and swigged another two fingers of gin.

My parents came home that Friday afternoon, I had physically recovered enough to clean everything but the odor of cigarette smoke, it shouldn't have made a difference from Dad's Cuban cigars, yet I knew Mom's clever senses would snap right to it. Mom tolerated things in Dad she NEVER accepted from anyone else.

"Have ya' been having wild parties in here, Mickey?" Mom sniffed as the front door closed behind her, she held out her arms, waiting for my hug and a peck on the cheek. She fit right there next to my heart and I realized I hadn't had a hug in days, it felt comforting.

"Not a bit, in fact I mowed the yard and got my laundry done, even cleaned the grease trap" I crowed just a bit, without spilling this week's sadness, then I had to, "Mom, have you heard the news about the murdered girl?" I stepped back from her as Dad set the suitcases in the foyer.

"Caught some word of it on the way home, sounds like a psycho" my Father was cut and dry about crime. He slid out of his jacket and was about to toss it over the hall tree when just a look from Mom caused him to open the coat closet and hang it up.

"It had to be," the words spewed unchecked, I wandered to the sofa in the parlor and they followed, hooked by my admission that I was one of the two people to find her. I spoke emotionally as they listened in rapt attention. They nodded with concerned expressions, and then at my silence they gathered to my sides and did what every parent does, told me "you did all you could do" and that "each day will get easier". All their concerns were poured into me, their only son; I almost felt I had let them down being musician still living at home. The family discussion left me sapped, I excused myself and showered, then laid down for a nap before the show tonight.

Some providence comes shielded by beauty, some by stark brutality.

I had overslept, the Baby Ben on my bed table hadn't been wound tightly to ring the alarm I woke after the sun had set. I angrily stomped down the stairs, "Mom, what'd you let me sleep for? For Christ's sake I'll lose the shit can job at the skit can lounge for this". I was talking to myself, the house was silent, the single parlor lamp burning, and they had slid out for dinner.

I picked up the phone to call the lounge, the call wouldn't go thru. I slipped into my clothes and took off on foot to the lounge. The night air was heavy, and a few blocks from the Lounge I caught the scent of smoke, it made me think of the scant fires we lit in the Ardennes, I thought about Sonny's blood in the hay, between the horror of what I had to do and my lateness I was sick to my stomach. I bent over, panting and threw up a little, then recouped and bolted at the first break in the traffic.

I wasn't prepared for the hive of activity when I blew around the corner, the Cat's Eye ablaze. Three, four stories of flames and smoke danced above the heads of the crowd milling around. Were they waiting for heroic rescues from the apartments in the upper floors?

"What happened?" I guess I sounded this side of a half-wit.

"Firebombed, the place was gutted before they got here" the bum nodded, sucking his near toothless gums while he shuffled from foot to foot.

"Gutted? Where is everyone? Who got out?" my feet fought to cover ground, find the guys, find Candy.

"Just a few people around the door; have you seen the place? It's a dive; the old place was a fire trap" the bum sniffled and hacked as he dug for a smoke in his pockets, I grabbed him, making focus with me.

"Why aren't they bringing them out?" why was I asking a bum?

The place burned to the ground, the firemen couldn't or wouldn't go into the burning building, the smoke too thick to see. Survivors, people sober enough to move in the right direction, reported a character of some odd behavior shouting something about "die, murderers", they were too smart to hang around, they vamoosed.

I sat on the curb, watching the blur of activity peter out as the fire turned to smoke and the smoke began to dissipate in the early morning breeze. Silently I cried into my folded hands, my guitar at my feet. The Red Cross had set up a truck, feeding the firemen and survivors coffee and doughnuts, their universal cure for any loss. I ate one doughnut that tasted like ash itself and I hurled it to the pavement. All those hours there was no sound, only the slow movements of people in a surreal setting. I closed my eyes for a moment and then out of their watery slits I thought I saw that fuck sack, Alexander. I started to rise to my feet and in that slit second he was gone, vanished. I never saw a guy move that fast in my life.

Glenn Miller - Sunrise Serenade

**#14 "Ephpheta"(Finis)**

The priest takes a little spittle and touches the ears and nostrils of the candidate with it. (For health reasons, the use of spittle may be omitted).

This rite comes from Mark 7:33-35, when Jesus healed the deaf-mute: "And taking him from the multitude apart, he put his fingers into his ears: and spitting, he touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he groaned and said to him: Ephpheta, which is, be thou opened. And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right."

Priest: Ephpheta, quod est, Adaperire. In odorem suavitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim iudicium Dei.

Priest: Ephpheta (Imperative of the "to open" in Aramaic) , that is to say, Be opened, for an odour of sweetness. Be thou, devil, begone; for the judgment of God shall draw near.

To say I had a baptism by fire would be succinct. So far in 1947 I had discovered a lover hacked in pieces and my buddies at work burned to cinders. I wondered how much more I'd be open to this year as I wandered the hospital halls until an Orderly caught me and guided me to the Emergency Admitting; there is an upside to looking pitiful because people help you.

The efficient nurse in the starched cap glared at me, I had that healthy appearance people with demons sometimes exhibit.

"My friends were in the fire, the Cat's Eye Lounge" I stood waiting while she shoveled thru paperwork.

"We've had 1 admission, a woman" her eyes never met mine. I waited a beat before I begged the name and got an icy response, "Gladys Esmy, an employee, she's being treated now".

I didn't know any Gladys, yet I wasn't ready to let go. I retreated from the desk and skulked around the hallways looking for a familiar face, perhaps a voice I'd distinguish from the enigmatic cries from behind numerous drawn curtains.

The smell of burnt clothing and acrid flesh drew me to the end of the hall, the waiting silence frightened me, was this the end of the road for the person behind the curtain? Had they rolled them their unable to do anything? I almost recognized a hint of familiar cologne and I cautiously stuck my nose between the two curtains drawn. Candy lay there in an opiate haze, bandaged at her elbow and knees as if she had been dragged thru the debris, her eyes were closed and her lips quivered in her "sleep". I slid to the side of the bed.

"Gladys?" I wanted to make her smile, if for no other reason than we both needed to break the cycle of unrelenting pain.

Her eyes opened with a butterfly flutter and she grit thru her teeth, "Not on your life, buddy, haven't been Gladys since 11th grade, got it?" then she smiled and I guessed I was welcome to sit beside her bed.

"What happened Candy?" I caught her hand and she let me hold it, she usually wasn't this warm with me when tips weren't involved.

"Some Drugstore Cowboy comes in and starts jacking his jaw on and on about where were the Shebas and the Princesses, he was looking for a doll he saw with a musician on New Year's Eve."

My heart tightened up, he was looking for Beth Short.

"So when Reggie says she's passed on, the lounge lizard goes off the wall, he blows out of the place and when he comes back he's got a bag and he tosses it right into the center of the club, I never saw a match all I heard was the explosion, I had gone into the office. That worm gave me the heeby jeebies; I didn't want to be around the guy, seems that saved my life."

"What about…." I had to know, this was the curiosity that would at least skin the cat and leave him terribly uncomfortable.

"They got burned up bad, we were all carried out at the same time, brought me here, they started working on me and then you walked in." She was resolved to rest without knowing the outcome, I didn't blame her.

"Look, you take it easy" what more could I say? Out of a job, skinned up and burnt in places that didn't show, Candy was one lucky gal, considering.

"I think I'm spending the night here, can you pick me up when they toss me out tomorrow?" Her smile was weak, forced, resigned.

"Sure I will, I'll borrow a car to ride you home in style, till then, don't start any card games without me, OK?" I stood and brushed the red hair off her forehead and gave her a little wave as I stepped outside the curtain and padded down the hall to look for a way out, I was done here for the night.

The sidewalk had the sad task of having to listen to my ponderings as I clipped home. Instead of going inside the house I sat on the glider and strummed the last bit of my old life, my guitar. Tonight was "grow up "time, I strummed quiet chords as I thought about tomorrow, what all these days in 1947 taught me about being a man.

It's one thing to march thru war, taking orders, operating like there's no tomorrow, it's another thing to come home and find the rest of the world thinking the world has gone back to normal because there isn't a wartime death toll on the radio.

I had to get straight. No dope, no liquor, behave like a gentleman. Who was I kidding? Could I get by with minimal alcohol and getting some skin on the 3rd date, yeah….I hope so, because that's where I think I needed to head.

**1995**

The funeral notice for my cousin drove home a certain consuming sadness, the same sadness I experienced when I watched them carry my folks to the grave. There for the grace of God, go I…. as my mother used to say. It was the grace of the Devil that froze me at 30, ever mindful of what I had left behind.

Now I was watching that little scamp, Beth Turner, she had seemed to give me almost a perverse reason for living. In the back of my head I saw it like Fred Astaire in "Daddy Longlegs", in my conscious mind I knew I'd have her back for another 60 or 70 years then watch them bury her too. At her age, the early teen years I found myself mindful of her curfew and spent too many hours at the malls while she sipped sodas and shared fries with her chatty Cathy friends.

Sometimes they rocked my eardrums squealing about Bon Jovi, too many times I watched them pine for a love they were too young to understand while they played and replayed Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You's". I'd catch a low growl deep in my chest when they'd talk about their class heartbreakers.

Just when I didn't want guests there was a single knock and my door flew open, Josef of course.

"Mickster, what's hopping today, looks like someone killed your dog. OH, Vampires don't keep pets, sorry" he was his usual snaky self.

"It's a cousin, he passed away, seems he's getting a royal sendoff" I pointed to the newspaper headlines screaming about John St John and his career. The file photo on the newspaper was a donut round happy guy smoking his ever present cigarette.

"Did you know him well, before you know….?" Josef had a habit of trailing off, unsure about my transition time.

"Not much, family get togethers, etc…..my father always wanted me to go into police work with him, you follow him up the ladder" My memory was hazy about John, I guess I had gotten busy, then 1952 happened and nothing meant anything in the earthly realm.

"He was a hotshot on the Dahlia case, wasn't he?" Josef seemed to feel me out about Jigsaw John's career.

"Hell if I know, what was the deal with that Dahlia case?" It was 1947, those were alcohol soaked years, in 1995 I couldn't recall them clearly.

"Girl found cut apart, vamps were on their guard, and it was the worst of a bad situation if you catch my drift. You don't recall it?" Josef was prodding, trying to pull a Band-Aid off.

"No, all I remember is the sensational headlines" I remarked as I folded up the paper and headed for the bar, it wasn't too early for a snort. I poured two rocks glasses.

Josef sat splayed on the sofa, hand up waiting for me to deliver the single malt, "You were a musician then weren't you?" his lips pursed, his brows drawn up. I knew when Josef was prodding, I just didn't know why.

"And all musicians must be involved with grisly murders?" I sat opposite him, earnestly trying to understand his line of questioning

"Then I guess I did an ace job back then" Josef drew a long swallow and put down his drink.

"Would you like to explain what the hell you mean by that?" I pushed and the damn broke, Josef just couldn't keep the secret.

"There was a musician at the Cat's Eye Lounge, a young Mick St John, he had a one night stand with a gal who ended up a loose ends" I listened as if he were talking about someone else, it wasn't me to my recollection. I guess by the look on my face he couldn't wait to break the news.

"Yes, Mick, it was. You were human, they played a little game after it was all over and they spared you the . . . . . Memories, the heartaches." He was matter of fact, as if it need not be discussed further and he was so wrong.

That's when decided I'd press harder, get in his face. I pulled him up from the sofa straight to my nose, "What did you mean, NOW Josef" by the time I had lifted him off his feet his composure was shaken. Not satisfied I shook him again, and then threw him back on the sofa. He stood to reconcile his clothing to his athletic frame and I bore down on him again, this time with my arms crossed over my chest, eyes slit, a frown across my face.

He sang like the proverbial canary. "Those were the days, 1947, some of the bar boys had seen Beth Short, even hung out on the strip of sad bars where the- ah, Cat's Eye was" Josef picked up his glass and headed back to the bar, "But it was the Chevaliers that really craved her. I had to talk the old man out of taking a bite out of you"

I didn't have one recollection of any of it, I shot him a look. "Pardon me?"

He smirked at my reaction to a man taking a bite out of me. Where in the hell did that happen, it wasn't coming to me at all.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Chevalier was quite smitten with you, yet he didn't strike while the fangs were hot…..seems he was concerned about showing his hand since he rode you home one evening with Beth in the back seat with his cohort" Josef seemed self-satisfied that he knew the details of my human life, details I couldn't place.

Knowledge, truth, secrets.

Anything about my human life seemed precious and private to me, he should know nothing of that time.

"What do you mean that you kept your mouth shut all these years?" I was fairly seething, my hands fisting and releasing at my side. Here, Josef held the guts of a confidence almost 20 years and it just piqued me.

"It was agreed that your human life would be enhanced by your "forgetting" the incidents, we took it upon ourselves to use allure because what you saw was traumatic. You know the woman who found Beth Short never fared well, seeing someone you were intimate with, well in that state, you couldn't have been comfortable with that" nothing like a decision made for me.

Josef seemed resolute, as if he had seen my dark outcome. What could be darker than being turned on my wedding night? I felt like a pawn, for the umpteenth time in my vamp existence, Damn it.

"Mick, the realm of things on this earth go beyond what humans can actually deal with.. . . . ." Josef's tone was a bit deprecating and although I had been vamp for a couple of decades I didn't appreciate his words or the tone. I had never seen him make decisions like this - so why for me?

"Why me, Josef…..like my honeymoon situation…why me?" we separated in the room, took opposite corners as I paced in a circle, seething.

"Beth Short was a classic case of Mr. Sloppy and Mr. Stupid, they had "take out" they abused, didn't call for cleanup. Chevalier had planned on coming for you next, I put a foot on it, told him to get back to Paris, leave you the hell alone" Josef exposed the plan, as if the catharsis had freed him.

"Why? Why tell me now?" I wiped at my lips, they seemed to have caught a little more saliva than I usually held, was my heart accelerating?

"Hell, what we had to do then was all well and good, now, considering who you are, what you are, I HAD TO LET IT GO" he nearly barked the words.

"I'd almost think you were running for public office with all this disclosure" I cocked an eye brow, fully aware that Josef was a fairly formidable vamp in the community; I just stayed out of the hierarchy.

"Mick, you lost your notion of freedom on your wedding night, or so you thought. You were so fixated that being human was free, that being a vampire limited you. There will miles to go before you can flourish, something in your undead life has to change" Josef was pacing now, hands deep into his fine wool trousers, his head shaking as if to judge me.

"That's right, What Coraline took I can never reclaim" I really didn't want to think about Coraline tonight, I had killed her by fire the night I saved little Beth.

"So while you mourn your cousin, keep this in mind, you are so fixed upon the barriers of the undead you can't even remember what the barriers are for humans. You're still here; John St John is deceased along with all the good he did".

I thought about that, John had cracked so many cases for the LAPD, now all of the good was history, stories recounted by cops in donut shops and squad rooms. His distinctive trail of cigarette smoke, the determined look on his face, the fact that all the years I knew him John St John missed most family get gatherings because of his sense of "duty" to the deceased.

"Any other surprises you want to divulge?" I was waiting to hear Santa was a vamp.

"We're going to have a first rate sit down one day, Mick, right now isn't the time. What's the cliché? You can't handle the truth?" his words were nearly prophetic or considerably troubled depending on how I wanted to interpret my friend's words.

What more did he know about human "me"?

I shut the door behind him and sat, half wanting to hide in the shadows at the cemetery half wanting to hide from my own kind while I grieved another family member's passing.

**2008**

I don't know why Josef thinks I like to window shop, if there ever was a soul dedicated to online shopping, it's me. Then when I saw Beth on the television standing next to Ben Talbot behind a man named Fordham I froze. Josef chalked it up to my seeing Beth Turner, he described me as "positively Pavlovian", and I'll admit that I am.

However the face on the television screen was eerily familiar and add that to the fact that he was standing on the lawn of Ray and Lilah's home in West Adams I was lost for an explanation of my reaction. It was something deep in my gut that rocked my psyche.

I shoved Josef out the door and jumped in my car heading for the old neighborhood, I was waxing nostalgic about my youth and all it's simple joys, then I pulled over and parked on a side street and observed from the shade of a tree that hadn't been then when I was young.

After watching Beth trail off behind Ben Talbot I inhaled the furious activity of the SID in their blue windbreakers. Once I made the decision to walk inside that house I knew I had to gird myself for whatever surprises there'd be.

Robert Fordham had made a public plea for help, Jacob; his son had been kidnapped from their home in the middle of the family's peaceful slumber. Would they ever rest well in that house again?

The Fordham's home had been invaded by people muddying the clues I could use and Beth's insistence at my behaving oddly just fueled my curiosity, who took Jacob? Who would victimize my friend's Grandson?

Ray and I had trampled thru wartime Europe together, covering each other thru too many battles to count. After being dismissed to wait for the "official" team to finish I drove home to reminisce. I hadn't been enjoying the portrait of Lilah too long when Beth launched herself at my office door.

When Beth caught me remembering Lilah's smile from the portrait in the leather frame I had cherished and hidden for so long I told her the story of my indiscretions, I explained the sequence of events. Simply stated I left my best friend for dead, and then I stole his wife, I felt ashamed. I knew how selfish I sounded; would Beth have any respect for me after hearing my confession?

When I admitted I had left Lilah, not knowing she was pregnant the hurt started all over again. Where were my ethics, my character when Ray returned and I evaporated from her life?

We rode back over to the Fordham's, Beth and I following my instincts as we began dissecting the facts. All the while I found myself comfortable in the home, instinctively reaching in directions that were second nature, like muscle memory. Of course Talbot had to give me the 3rd degree, and how in the hell Beth knew "boxers, not briefs" is beyond me, did she snoop in my underwear drawer the last time she was alone in the loft?

Am I jealous about Beth and Ben? I'd love to say no, yet it all seems horribly familiar for Beth to date a go-getter like Ben Talbot - as Yogi Berra said, it would all be déjà vu, all over again. Perhaps it was that jealousy that propelled me to believe that Robert Fordham could be my son. The idea rattled around in my brain while we sorted the facts of the case.

The foot locker held what I needed to rest my troubled mind; the razor and the scant hairs trapped in dried shaving soap would give us the answer to my question…was Jacob Fordham my Grandson? Once again, my future would depend on answers from the fine people in a labs.

Josef's profession of jealousy at my possibly fathering a child seemed odd, he mentioned regrets and that he didn't do "regrets", I never thought I'd see the day Josef would speak that frankly. His eyes had a warmth at the prospect that I could have had a child, and I did see a flicker of envy.

While Beth was naming our first mythical child and debating whether or not we'd be any good in bed I was feeling the velvet embrace of some sort of unfamiliar romantic warmth. The kind of warmth vampires would invite since we can't bask the sun. When Beth Turner's talking sex and a family, more than ever I wished I was human, that I could exercise any available option to make Beth feel "desirable" especially at the ends of my fingertips. It drove deep into me that we tread on the thin ice of my self control.

The pieces of the crime fell into place and we followed them as likely as children tripping down stepping stones. I found Ken Vertilino to be as spineless as most criminals who prey on children. It was a relief I didn't have to lay a hand on him; he took his own self out. Then with all the skills my horrible nature imbues in me I turned to hear Jacob's young heart slowing, he was bricked behind the crawl space. My frantic fingers dug at the mortar and I grasped at the bricks calling him, hoping it would be enough to keep his soul tied to life.

I held that youngster in my arms, cradled Jacob as I urged him to gulp the cool evening air to come back to us. I was carrying the earth and all its promise when I put Jacob in Robert's arms. With the crime solved, the essential legal steps closed I could admit I was overcome. I had to head home, grab the silence and coolness in my freezer alone.

Within the 48 hours promised I received the envelope that could transform the forces in my life. If Robert was my son, if I could reconcile it, my life was due to change dramatically. It would be one more motive to find a cure for what I am.

Beth had convinced me to attend the party for Jacob, nothing like her sweet azure eyes to get my attention. Beth held the white envelope in her lap all the way to the Fordham's, then as we were parked outside the Victorian home I heard her speak, yet I wasn't processing words. I was feeling pure emotion, the feelings of the need to protect, the need to celebrate, the need to be together.

My fingers peeled back the flap and I read what I needed to know, Robert is not my son. I could see Beth's expression and scent her confusion. Of course she had hoped I had family, it's how humans thrive and she knows I want to be human.

I couldn't go into the Fordham home; it was all too much for me to bear. I restarted the engine and pulled away from the curb the two of us riding in silence. Beth seemed to understand as I drove her up to her front door, I got out and politely opened her door. I stood still and watched her fish for her keys, my standing next to the car told her there would be no polite conversation, no hugs or brushing of lips goodbye.

I had to feed; so many emotions had drained me spiritually and bodily. I threw the envelope down on the island and poured a double A+; once it was consumed I splashed single malt into the glass, watching as the caramel colored fluid washed the blood from the glass' sides. The blood and the scotch mixed and I stared at the fluid, seeing it to be as muddy as my future with Beth.

We had humorously covered a number of subjects in the past few days….parenthood, infidelity, sexual compatibility. All of them moot subjects now.

What I needed was sort of a vampire "calibration", I needed Josef's perspective. Just a phone call away Josef sounded like he expected my call.

"Well, is it a Boy?" Josef mused as he handed me a cigar wrapped in a blue silk ribbon.

I accepted the cigar and tossed the blue ribbon in the waste can. He lit the Churchill and waited for my tirade.

"I'm not Robert's father" I waited for his response as I sucked in the hot smoke, hoping to feel something.

"As it should be, you couldn't have gone to him with that sort of news" that's Josef for you, "semper vampire"

"Right" I half-heartedly agreed with him as I found a leather wingchair in a dark corner, "What else is there, Josef?" he had followed me, his eyes wide at my buried emotions, or the lack of my expressing them.

"You once said I couldn't handle the truth, my truth. Josef, what did you mean by that?" my tongue moved an errant thread of tobacco off my tooth, the action gave me the appearance of revving up my fangs, Josef cocked his head, scenting my emotions. We were both on bare intuition and raw perceptions.

"That was a long time ago, what, the 90's?" he was shirking the question with large eyes flashing silver.

"1995, my cousin had just died. You told me some cock and bull story about me and the Black Dahlia" I rolled the tension out of my shoulders, drew in a lung full of unnecessary air and waited.

"In odorem suavitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim iudicium Dei." Josef certainly must have been a priest in one of his incarnation, the Latin was familiar but today I was lazy, I wanted to know exactly what he meant.

"Excuse me?" sure my tone was a bit flip, I wanted answers, all of them.

"Be opened, for an odour of sweetness. Be thou, devil, begone; for the judgment of God shall draw near." his hands mimicked the actions of the priest in the baptism ceremony, it was all coming back to me, the baptism ceremony that January day when Ray bolstered himself on crutches while I held his son to be blessed.

"There was a long while when you were involved in Bobby's life. Deeply involved in the Fordham household, it looked like you were going to slide right back into her bed even with Ray there" Josef's voice was cold, unemotional.

"No, I left once Ray came home, or at least I thought I did until you repeated the phrase from the baptism ceremony" he had doused me with doubt.

"Mick, you were headed our direction long before Coraline gave you the kiss of the undead" This was one more of Josef's reality bombs.

"Josef I don't want to have any more of these conversations…this time I want the level truth" Brutal anger overcame me as I fought the feeling to charge him in his own home.

"I could give you back the memories" Josef looked at me over his shoulder, trusting me not to plunge a stake thru his undead heart.

"What? What do you mean by that? WHAT ELSE don't I know about my nature, about being a vampire?" was I pissed? To put it mildly, I was pissed.

"All of your lost time" Josef's whiskey brown eyes opened wide, he rested himself on the edge of the bar, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for my answer.

It dawned on me I had very little recollections from the time the ARMY delivered the news that Ray was coming home. The next solid recollection I had was 1952, meeting Coraline while playing in a band. It could be my folly or my foundation for the future to know the lost realities of what went before. I bit down and nodded.

"Sure of that?" He levied a serious look, knowing that once "seen" my past couldn't be unseen, vamp allure having no effect on another vamp.

"How long is it going to take?" I looked at my watch and waited for his answer.

"We'll be done by sunrise" He smiled that brotherly smile of his and I felt he'd be my destroyer as well as my rock within those hours. I watched him reach for a small ornate box on the shelf above the liquor, a sheathed knife along with a linen bar towel, then vamp quick he was on his knee in front of me, "Let me have your arm"

I flashed back to Coraline slicing me open to deliver those few days of being human, in my heart of hearts I had hoped this was the same viscous red jam that she had administered. My expression flared and Josef shook his head, "No, boyo, this isn't what you think it is, it's just the catalyst for all those tied up memories" with that I sank back into the chair and waited for the blade.

Josef bowed his head over me, lifted the sheath off the silver knife and recited words I recognized, "Accipe lampadem ardentem, et irreprehensibilis custodi Baptismum tuum: serva Dei mandata ut cum Dominus venerit ad nuptias, possis occurrere ei una cum omnibus Sanctis in aula caelesti, habeasque vitam aeternam, et vivas in saecula secularism"

(Receive this burning light, and keep thy Baptism so as to be without blame: keep the commandments of God, that when the Lord shall come to the nuptials, thou mayest meet Him together with all the Saints in the heavenly court, and mayest have eternal life and live for ever and ever)

Josef laid the bar clothe on my thigh and placed my forearm to receive the silver blade. It burned a bleeding path toward my near still heart and when he was satisfied with the area opened he cut his thumb with the same blade. Once he extracted what he saw to be the right amount of "catalyst" he smeared it with his bloody thumb up the length of my arm and I waited for some revelation. Would it come from within?

Josef rose and stepped backward until his knees hit the sofa and he lowered himself slowly, "What you are feeling will be moments I extracted thru allure, Mick. We met on January 19th, 1947, that Sunday. I had listened to you play your guitar all night on your family's porch". Josef grew silent for a few moments and I felt my head go light.

"Do you remember the man who approached you Sunday at sunrise, asking for directions?" Josef's head inclined toward me sympathetically. I shook my head "no" and he went on, "I sat down and looked closely into your eyes, as I asked you about the past few months you told me everything. You spilled like a tapped font, Mick. By the time your parents left for 10am Mass I was done for then at least. From time to time I would intersect with you, seal a bit more inside that vault you call a brain"

I shook my light head unbelievingly, "How often did you see me?" I watched his red blood soak into my open wound, wondering where it would move with my scant circulation.

"That's not as important as what I have to unlock, lay back, Mick, close your eyes. Listen and accept it all, regardless of its abstractacity. From the most minute point to the smallest banality, absorb it all, accept it back as I recount it" I heard his words from under a haze as perceptible as gauze over a camera lens.

I felt my feet being placed on the hassock, I saw Josef moving around me, and then the gamut of experiences began to flow back into my head, thru my heart and soul.

I understood why returning to the Fordham's stirred muscle memories, Josef gave me back all the family time I had spent with the 3 of them. I recalled it all while Ray grew stronger and eventually walked with crutches and braces, I listened to Bobby read "Dick and Jane" as I had taught him before he left for kindergarten.

I felt all those sisterly kisses poached from Lilah at the door frame when I left the Fordhams' after enjoying one of her ham dinners. The weekdays working in the loan department at the bank and the few weekend gigs my new group scored made me smirk. I had been working honestly and had stayed sober right up until the night in the glass house when Coraline asked me if I wanted to "get wet?"

Josef would press a clean handkerchief into my hand from time to time as I wept with sadness or joy; I paid keen attention to each word from Josef's lips. By the first glow of dawn all the flattened, flushed images held somewhere else had been reanimated inside me. I awoke with a glass in my hand, a particularly lively A+ and I swallowed it down in one smooth gulp.

The gash in my arm was raw, just beginning to grow together; Josef was silently watching me, reclining on the sofa across from me.

"I don't know what to say….." I ran a hand thru my hair and felt the scruff on my chin.

"As long as that wound is open and we're together more things will come to the fore, get yourself cleaned up, I know you want to call Beth, I'll be in the library" and I watched him saunter out ahead of me.

We spent the rest of the day, Josef and I arguing back and forth about his rights to snag and corral my human experiences. By sunset the wound had become a thin red scar and the door was closing on retrieving more palpable hidden treasures. I was satisfied with what he had shared, not satisfied that he had suppressed it. Would I play mind games with a 90 year old vampire when I was 400? I hoped not.

Now I wondered if Coraline had suppressed any memories before our wedding night, had I seen something that would have broken our engagement. Did I ever stand a chance? You know right now is not the time for "would haves" and "what ifs"

It's 2008, I'm closer to Beth than I have ever been, I can feel our connection even separated as we are right now.

I rejoined Josef in the library, relaxing in borrowed pajamas and robe, a guy could get used to this.

"Do you hate me forever?" Josef smirked, back to his snarky self as he offered me a goblet of blood infused champagne.

"Depends on how soon you come back with more "details" I sarcastically shot back, "So many things make sense now, certain nagging feelings, gut reactions" I slugged at his shoulder and he moved vamp fast to evade the punch.

"Well, allure isn't a scientific action, there's a lot left to suggestion" Still cavalier, still Josef.

"A lot?" Coraline never covered Vamp 101, did I need to go to night school?"

"Not to worry now, Mick….you know more than you ever did, you have a future ahead of you." Josef's answer seemed secretive yet I was satisfied with what I knew for now. The scar on my arm had faded to nothing; the door for discussion had closed.

Josef's arm caught me around the neck and whooshed me to the edge of the patio. I saw the rising lights of the city flickering, and he whispered in my ear, "Got a particular invitation for you, and your delightful girlfriend, she is your girlfriend, right?"

I drew back and gave him the expression he deserved, "Now what?"

"The dedication on Sarah's building, next week at Hearst College. Open up that tight wallet and let a few dollars fly out of it, buy her something striking. Then get yourself a new tux, I want to two of you with me, you know for Sarah"

"Sure, Josef, any pretext to spend a ton of money on a night out." I slapped him on the back and figured, why not, at an Athletic Building Dedication what could go wide off the mark?

Finis


End file.
